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A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD; 



OR, 



REMINISCENCES OF TRAVEL BEYOND 
THE SEA. 



BY 



W. HARLAN CORD, 

Author of " Waterloo," (a translation from the French of 
M, Erckmann-Chatrian.) 



^ 



" A little peaceful home 
Bounds all my wants and wishes ; add to this 
My book and friend, and this is happiness." 

— Francesco di Rioja. 




Mi-it /iO i....^. I 



ST. LOUIS: 

JOHN BURNS PUBLISHING CO. 

717 AND 719 Olive Street. 

1885. 



Copyrighted, 1SS5, 
By W. HARLAN CORD. 









m Mmonam. 



To the memory of my beloved aunt, Miss Eliza A. Dupuy, 
the Authoress, to whose fostering care and life-long affection 
the author is indebted far beyond all expression, and whose 
social and domestic qualities were only equaled by the lustre 
of her talents, this unassuming volume is affectionately 
dedicated by her nephew — the author. 

" Green grow the turf above thee. 
Friend of my better days ! 
None knew thee but to love thee, 
None named thee but to praise." 



PREFACE. 



JHE following desultory pages are the unstudied 
and cursory record of the fruition of years of 
desire and anticipation — "a vague unrest and a name- 
less longing" — which has, perhaps, pervaded the 
minds of many into whose hands they may chance to 
fall ^ a tour of Europe. 

The writer had the rare privilege of accompanying 
the Apollo Commandery of Knights Templars of the 
city of Chicago, on their noted pilgrimage of Europe 
in the summer of 1883, and as no other knight of the 
quill has essayed to chronicle that extremely pleasant 
tour of some of the most interesting portions of the 
Old "World, and as he has thought (perhaps with a 
pardonable pride) that such a notable event in the 
annals of Freemasonry should not pass into oblivion 
altogether, this circumstance chiefly, and not alone 
a mere vulgar cacoeihes scribendi, has induced him to 
add — inadequately, though it may be — another to 
the almost countless volumes of travel with which the 
reading public are, perhaps, surfeited. 

However, the Masonic feature of the work (which 
is, by the way, mainly confined to the second and sev- 
enth chapters), it is hoped, will recommend it to the 

(5) 



6 , PREFACE. 

kindly consideration of the Fraternity, while it is not 
prominent enough, it is believed, to repel the general 
reading public, as the entire volume, from beginning to 
end, is both descriptive and historical, and the author 
accordingly asks for the book the partial and kindly 
consideration of the reading public in general, in the 
hope that its perusal may not be wholly devoid of 
interest or of profit, even to those who have visited 
the same places so famed in song and story, and who, 
it is hoped, may embrace this opportunity to revisit 
them in fancy, at least, with the writer. 

It is also believed that the book may be of some 
service to those who expect some day to *' go down to 
the sea in ships," as well as to those stay-at-homes, 
who have neither the desire nor the time to "go 
abroad ; " and with these prefatory remarks the book 
is respectfully and hopefully submitted to the public 

by 

The Author. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Off for Europe — Parade in Chicago — Decorations of the 
"Special" — Scenes in the Suburbs — Fun on Board — Eecep- 
tion in New York at the Grand Union Hotel — '< Marching Down 
Broadway" — Life on the Ocean Wave — A Sabbath at Sea — 
Land, Ho! — Queenstown — Liverpool — Railway Traveling in 
England — English Landscapes ...... 13-38 

CHAPTER II. 

Arrival at York, and Reception by the Craft — The Old Roman 
Wall — Historical Sketch of the Ancient Capital of the North — 
St. Mary's Abbey — St. Leonard's Hospital — York Minster — 
York and its Relations to Freemasonry Considered — Abstract 
of the Address on Freemasonry of Rev. Sir S. W. Young — 
M. de Lamartine on Freemasonry — Pope Leo XIII. 's Opinion 
of the Order — Notice from the York Herald — Abstracts of Valu- 
able Addresses on Freemasonry of Bros. Todd, Young and Bell 
on the Institution of Freemasonry Delivered at Various 
Periods — The Grand Masonic Banquet at York . . . 38-62 

CHAPTER III. 

Visit to Cambridge — Historical Sketch of the University — 
How it is at Present Conducted — Cambridge Under-graduates, 
and how they Live at the University — Trinity College — Ma- 
caulay and Sir Isaac Newton — Other Distinguished Graduates — 
Arrival in the World's Greatest Metropolis — On a Bus for 
Hyde Park — Sights on London Streets — Hyde Park and Rot- 
ten Row — The Princess of Wales and the Right Hon. W. E. 
Gladstone — " Mrs. Jarley's Wax Works " at Madam Tussauds' 
Museum — Charles Dickens — Napoleon the Great — The Tower 
of London — The Crown Jewels — Tower Green — The Waiter's 

Gate — Tower Hill — St. Peter's Chapel 62-90 

(7) 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IV. 



St. Paul's Cathedral — Naval and Military Heroes — The 
Whispering Gallery — Up into the Ball — D own into the Crypts — 
Lord Wellington's Puneral Car — Some Stunning Statistics — 
Westminster Abbey — The National Walhalla, or Temple of 
Fame — Tombs of King, Warriors, and Statesmen — The Poets' 
Corner — Gay's Epitaph — Shakespeare's Pall-bearer — Old 
Pan's Tomb — The Savory Theater, and Miss Eortescae, Lord 
Garmoyle's j^awcee-— Biggest Breach of Promise Verdict on 
Record — The "Complete Letter Writer" — The Lord Chan- 
cellor of England 91-119 

CHAPTER V. 

Off for the Continent and La Vie PaHsienne — Hardships of 
English "Drivers" and "Stokers" — Crossing the Channel — 
American Boarding School patois and Parisian French Com- 
pared — Tom Hood's Wholesome Advice to all Tourists who 
do not Paries vous Francais — Captain O'Shea's Trouble with 
the "Lingo" — Boulogne and Bonaparte's "Army of En- 
gland" — England's Imminent Danger at that Period — First 
Impressions of Paris — Paris by Night — A French Dejeuner — 
Excursion to Versailles — Site of the Execution of Jacques de 
Molay — French Gamins — "All the Glories of France" — The 
Rooms of the Crusades — Gallery of the Empire — Gallery of 
Battles — The Grand Fountain at Versailles — Grand Trianon — 
Petit Trianon — The Gallery of Glass — Saint Cloud — The Arch 
of Triumph — Eden Theater — The Madeleine — Notre Dame — 
The Wonders of the Louvre 120-151 



CHAPTER VI. 

The Champs Elysees, a wonderful Cosmorama — Beautiful 
Paris hard to Conceive as the Scene of the Reign of Terror — 
Tlie Place de la Concorde — The Site of the Guillotine — Terri- 
ble Catastrophe in Connection with the Celebration of the 
Nuptials of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette — The Eight 



CONTENTS. y 

Statues of the Place de la Concorde — The Tomb of the 
Emperor Napoleon the Great — The Hotel des Invalides — 
Napoleon's Old Veterans — The Column of July on the Site of 
the Bastile — The Cemetery of Pere la Chaise — Wreaths of 
Immortelles — Some Distinguished Dead — Marshal Ney — The 
Pantheon — Eousseau and Voltaire — Mirabeau and Marat — 
The Morgue — Pen Picture of the Temple — The Ancient Strong- 
hold of the EJiights Templars of France — Some of its Dis- 
tinguished Inmates in Modern Times 152-178 

CHAPTER VII. 

The Fall of Jerusalem — Its Possession by the Moslems — 
William de Beau-Jeu Grand Master of the Templars at the Siege 
of Acre and Death of William de Beau-Jeu — The Siege cif 
Acre — Valiant and Almost Unparalleled Bravery of the Knights 
of the Red Cross and Knights Templars During the Siege — The 
Temple House of Acre — William de Beau-Jeu Killed and Suc- 
ceeded by Gaudini — FaU of Acre, and Flight to Cyprus of the 
handful of Surviving Christian Knights Under the Grand Master 
Gaudini — Death of Gaudini in, 1295 and the Election of the 
Illustrious Jacques de Molay as his Successor — Cyprus the 
Stronghold of the Order — Character of James de Molay — 
Alliance with Cazan Khan Emperor of Persia Against the 
Moslems — Alliance, however, Produces no Great Results — 
Conspiracy Against the Templars — James de Molay Betrayed 
Into the Hands of Philip the Fair, King of France — Simul- 
taneous Seizure of all the Strongholds of the Order in France 
by Treachery — Cruel Imprisonment, and Torture of the Temp- 
lars — Death at the Stake — End of James de Molay — Retribu- 
tion — How the Order of the Templars was Preserved from 
Extinction 178-212 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The Vendome Column — The Grand Opera House — L'Afri' 
caine — Goody-by to Paris — Fontainebleau — The Valley of the 
Rhone — Arrival at Geneva — The Lake of Geneva — Geneva the 



10 CONTENTS. 

Early Beloved of Protestantism — The Birthplace of Rousseau, 
and the Scene of John Calvin's Labors — Calvin's House — 
Geneva Historically Considered — Various Sights of the City — 
Eesidence of Many Persons noted in the History of Europe — 
Cathedral of Saint Pierre — Calvin the "Protestant Pope" — 
Some of his Sumptuary Laws — Calvin in the r6le of a Man- 
Milliner — Scenes on the Lake — Visit to the Castle of Chillon — 
Sketch of the Famous Prisoner, Bonnivard — How Byron Came 
to Write the Poem — Lausanne, where Gibbon Finished the ^ 
" Decline and Fall of the Eoman Empire" . . . .212-246 

CHAPTER IX. 

Freigberg — Bernie — The Lake of Thun — Interlaken, the 
Saratoga of Switzerland — The Jungfrau — Swiss Carvings — 
The Casino — Le GhevalUer — Visit to the Mer de Glace at Grin- 
den wald — Scenes Along the Valley of the Lutschine — The 
Yodlyn — The Banz des Vaohes — Climbing the Glacier — Senator 
Sawyer Affects a Sedan Chair — The Awful Silence of the 
Alpine Peaks — The Avalanche — The Dangers of the Grinden- 
wald Glacier — A Sabbath in Switzerland — Reunion of the Pil- 
grims — The Lake of Brienz — The Geissbach Falls —A Beautiful 
Valley — The Brunig Pass — Lake Lungern — The Sarner See — 
Bonaparte's Timber Glide . 247-272 

CHAPTER X. 

The Lake of Lucerne — View of the City of Lucerne from the 
Lake — Rigi-Kulm and Mount Pilatus — The Scene of Tell's 
Famous Exploits — The Lion of Lucerne — The Hofkirche of 
Lucerne — Sketch of the Organization of the Swiss Confedera- 
tion—The Death of the Gessler — Visit to Tell's Chapel— The 
Spot where Gessler was Shot — Was Tell only a Myth — The 
Tomb of Erasmus of Rotterdam at Bale, with some Remarks on 
Luther and Erasmus — Strasbourg and its Great Cathedral with 
its Wonderful Clock — Its Marvelous Fortifications, and its 
Strength as a Strategic Point — Gutenburg, the Inventor of 
Printing 273-304 



CONTENTS. 11 

CHAPTER XI. 

Heidelberg — Historical Sketch of the Palatinate — The 
Castle — Michael Angelo's /a^acZe — View from the Parapet — 
The Valley of the Neckar — The Big Tun — The Blown-up 
Tower — The University — Worms, Immortalized by Martin 
Luther — Parallel Between Luther and Erasmus in Eegard to 
the Part Each Played in Forwarding the Reformation — Die 
Wa kht am Bhein — Mayence — The Bridge of Boats — Bingen 
on the Rhine — The Legend of Bishop Hattloand the Mouse- 
Tower — The Legend of the two Brothers, and the Beautiful 
Hildegarde — Legend of the Sirens — The Fortress of Ehren- 
breitstein — Rhine Scenery — Byron's Beautiful Farewell to the 
Rhine 304-345 

CHAPTER XII. 

Cologne, and its Wondrous Cathedral — Matchless View from 
the Graceful Spire — German Soldiers as Compared with the 
Followers of the Marseillaise — The Church of Saint Ursula, and * 
the Legend of the Eleven Thousand Virgins — Panorama of the 
Battle of Gravelotte — Aix-la-Chapelle, and the Tomb of Charle- 
magne, the Great Emperor of the West, who was the Model 
Exemplar of Napoleon the Great — Brussels — Picture Galleries — 
Church of St. Gudolf — Brussels Lace — The Wiertz Museum — 
The Hotel de Ville — The Mannikin — The Duchess of Rich- 
mond's Ball — Visit to Waterloo — Sketch of the Battle — The 
Duke of Wellington's Unfavorable Opinion of Napoleon, Whom 
he Called "Jonathan Wild the Great " — One of the Napoleon's 
Veterans Contra — Wellington Likened to Brutus, and Bonaparte 
to Cassius, in Shakespeare's Julius Csesar .... 345-387 

CHAPTER XIII. 

The City of Antwerp — Cathedral Spire — Rubens' Master- 
piece — The Descent from the Cross — The Ascent of the Cross — 
Quenten Matsys — The Blacksmith Painter — Rubens — Van 
Dyke — Picture Galleries — Birthday of Henri Flamande, the 
Flemish Poet — Panorama of Waterloo — Back Across the 



12 CONTENTS. 

North Sea to London — The " Lingo " Intelligible once More — 
The British Museum — Visit to Hampton Court — Trip to 
Windsor Castle 387-426 

CHAPTER XIV. 
John Bunyan's Tomb — John Wesley's House —The House of 
Commons— G. Otto Trevelyan — Lord Macaulay's Nephew 
Under Secretary for Ireland — Chas. Parnell, the Irish Agitator 
and Leader in the House of Commons — Sir William McArthur, 
Ex-Lord Mayor of London — Sir Henry Brand, Speaker of the 
House of Commons — The London Newspapers — The Tower 
and the Abbey Once More — A Ride on the Thames — The 
Underground Railway— The South Kensington Museum— 
John Soone's Museum— "Down to Scotland "—Edinboro — 
View from Arthur's Seat — Edinboro termed the "Modem 
Athens" — Reflections on Mary Queen of Scots — Edinboro 
Castle 427-458 

CHAPTER XV. 

Historic Streets— The House where Robert Burns was made 
a Mason and Poet Laureate of the Lodge — Holyrood Palace — 
John Knox's House — Jeanie Deans — Sir Walter Scott's House 
and Monument — Monument to Prince Albert — Monument to 
the Duke of Wellington 458-496 

CHAPTER XVI. 

The National Gallery — Some Notable Pictures — Extract 
from the Address of Prince Albert on the Fine Arts — Off for 
the Scenes made Famous by the Wizard of the North — Loch 
Katrine, and the Lady of the Lake — Loch Lamond — Tobias Smol- 
lett's Landed Estate, and Sketch of his Life — Pumbarton 
Castle, and the Sword of Sir William Wallace — Glasgow — The 
Necropolis — John Knox's Monument — The Cockburn Hotel — 
The Jersey Lily — Mrs. Langtry As Rosalind in "As You Like 
It " at the Princess Theater — Homeward Bound . .496-549 



A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 



CHAPTER I. 



FKOM CHICAGO TO NEW YOEK. 

^N Thursday, July 12th, 1883, in compliance with 
arrangements previously made by Eminent Com- 
mander Norman T. Gassette, of Apollo Commandery, 
No. 1. Knights Templar, of Chicago, with Sir E. M. 
Jenkins, of New York, a goodly number of Apollo, 
with those intending Pilgrims, so courteously invited to 
" participate," from other cities and States, *' quorum 
parsparvafui,^^ the writer of this " abstract and brief 
chronicle " of one of the most noted Masonic Pilgrim- 
ages in the annals of American Freemasonry, met at 
the elegant and spacious headquarters of Apollo Com- 
mandery, which has a membership of over 700, 
making her the largest commandery in the world, 
preparatory to "forming lines" to march to the 
Michigan Central Depot, on our way to New York, 
and thence to Europe. 

(13), 



14 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

The procession was made up of probably 150 Sir 
Knights, preceded by the Oriental Consistory, of 
Chicago, to the number of about 50, and a fine band 
of music, and paraded through several of the principal 
streets of the city. There was a large crowd at the 
depot to see the departure of the pilgrims, and the 
train, which was a " special," pulled out amidst vast 
enthusiasm. 

The engine was handsomely decorated, having in 
front the coat of arms of Apollo, and was decked out 
all over with the Maltese cross, banners in the greatest 
profusion, and the inscription on either side of the 
locomotive, *' Apollo Commandery of Chicago." 
The train was composed of six elegant Wagner sleep- 
ers, two baggage cars, and a smoker, and the coaches 
were all comfortably filled. Throughout the ten or 
fifteen miles from the depot along the lake shore, and 
through the suburbs of the city, the passage of the 
Templar train evoked the most intense enthusiasm from 
hundreds of people who had gathered along the route 
to see the <' Templars pass,'^ and there was tremendous 
cheering, waving of handkerchiefs, Maltese banners, 
etc. 

The conductor of the train, all the way to New York, 
was a Templar, and at Saint Thomas, Canada, where 
we took breakfast, our engine was changed for the 
second time, and we were put in charge of a Templar 
engineer and a Templar conductor, they being members 
of*' Saint Thomas Preceptory," as the commanderies 
of Canada are called. Our friend, the engineer, and 



FROM CHICAGO TO NEW YORK. 15 

the division master, also a Templar, had evidently 
spread themselves in the decoration of the engine and 
tender, as they were decked out as handsomely as the 
engine which pulled us out of Chicago. 

The tender had an inscription on either side, con- 
sisting of the following words, " The Michigan Central 
and Canada Southern Railroad, wishes you a pleasant 
voyage and a safe return," and in the center of the 
tender on either side was a large horse shoe inclosing 
a Maltese cross. Our party felt so highly flattered by 
the pains taken by our friends, that we almost involun- 
tarily gave three cheers for the beautiful engine, and 
the Masonic brethren who had so kindly decorated it. 

The manager of our excursion. Sir E. M. Jenkins 
(who, we regret to say, has since died), arrived in 
Chicago on July 10th, in order to personally conduct 
our party to New York, and had, as he thought, ar- 
ranged to issue our tickets, etc., at 101 Clark Street, 
where he had formerly had an office ; but when the peo- 
ple of that office (the Erie Railroad) found out that our 
party had tickets over a rival road, they were so dis- 
courteous to him that he found himself compelled to 
remove to the business place of E. C. Norman T. 
Cassette, who had special command of the party on 
the entire trip, and right well did he discharge his trust. 
Here, of course all was bustle and confusion, there 
being quite an influx of tourists to see Sir Jenkins ; 
some to pay the balance due on their tour, some to 
exchange American money for British gold, some to 



16 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

obtain letters of credit, to get their tickets for the trip, 
etc. 

Excepting our steamer tickets, the remainder of the 
coupons for the tour were bound in an elegant little 
morocco book, having the Maltese cross on one side 
and on the other the words : — 

Apollo Commandery, 
Chicago. 

Pilgrimage to Europe. 
1883. 

We will now say something more about our train : — 

Four of the sleepers had each a placard which read 
altogether as follows: "Pilgrimage of Apollo Com- 
mandery,No. 1,K. T., Chicago to Europe, iJza Canada 
Southern, New York Central and Hudson River Rail- 
road, and steamship City of Rome." 

The next morning after we left Chicago, I noticed 
one of the placards was missing, having been taken 
oif, I suppose by some mischievous urchin, at some 
station through which we had passed during the night. 

Everybody on board of the train was in the best of 
humor, despite the dangers of the " vasty deep " which 
we were so soon to encounter, many of us for the first 
time, and the fun grew fast and furious, and in the 
coach occupied by about thirty of the Apollo Com- 
mandery, who were known as the "escort," as they 
were to go with us only as far as New York, there was 
an especially good time to be had. Everybody seemed 



FROM CHICAGO TO NEW YORK. 17 

to be possessed of the chief requisite for a successful 
traveler — imperturbable good humor — and an inten- 
tion to make the best of everything, and all were jolly 
and sociable to the utmost. 

The pleasure of the trip was considerably enhanced 
by the " Big Four " of Apollo, who were among the 
" escort " and who sang exquisitely. Soonafterleaving 
Chicago, "The Big Four," along with the " boys," 
went through the train, and gave the occupants of 
each coach a rousing song, and then they would 
sing on the platform at all the prominent stations, and 
always elicited immense applause, especially at Syra- 
cuse. We stopped at this point for supper, and they 
sang, among others, their famous "cat song," which 
provoked immense enthusiasm. A very comical thing 
happened in the escort coach, and it was this: Several 
Knights had seized on an unsuspecting frater, tied one 
of the sheets of the sleeper around his neck, and then 
proceeded to lather and shave the struggling Knight, 
nolens volens; and what do you think the barbarous 
fellows used in lieu of razors? Well, they actually 
used a hand saw and an ax, and they rubbed them 
over his face so roughly, that we were all afraid that 
the motion of the train might cause them to injure 
him seriously. However, he escaped apparently all 
right, and we afterwards saw the victim throw a glass 
of ice water down the neck of the chief inquisitor, we 
supposed, as the only means he had of getting even. 
Nothing more of special interest transpired until we 
reached Albany, where, although at the unseemly hour 

2 



18 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

of 1:30 a. m., Sir John H. Quinby, E.C ., Temple 
Commandery No. 2, with a party of Sir Knights, met 
the train, and showed the boys around a little, *' set 
'em up," shot off fire-works, etc., and had a good time 
generally. Our train arrived at the Grand Central 
Depot in New York City, at 7 o'clock a. m. on Satur- 
day, July 14th, and our party were met and heartily 
welcomed by a large deputation of Sir Knights, headed 
by Eminent Commander Empson, of Palestine Com- 
mandery No. 18, of New York, and by them we were 
conducted to the Grand Union Hotel, adjacent to the 
depot, where Eminent Commander Empson greeted us 
most cordially in a neat speech, wishing us Godspeed 
on our pilgrimage, which was most happily responded 
to by Eminent Commander Norman T. Gassette, of 
Apollo, after which, we pledged each other's health in 
sparkling champagne at the expense of Palestine No. 
18. Then, our party partook of a sumptuous break- 
fast, and the next thing in order was to make our ar- 
rangements for the grand parade to the steamer City 
of Eome. At about 10 a. m. we formed lines, having as 
our escort a large delegation from Palestine No. 18, 
which is to New York City Freemasonry what the aris- 
tocratic and high-toned Seventh Eegiment is to New 
York society. The escort numbered probably 150 Sir 
Knights, all fine looking, almost without exception, in 
full Templar regalia, and wearing white duck pants like 
the West Point Cadets, who were preceded by a fine band 
of music and a large drum corps. The ladies of our 
party, who were quite numerous and accomplished, 



FROM CHICAGO TO NEW YORK. 19 

had already been sent down to our steamer, and the 
line' of march, which had been prepared for us by 
Palestine No. 18, covered a distance of perhaps three 
or four miles, including portions of Fifth Avenue, 
Broadway, and other leading thoroughfares of New 
York, and occupied not less than an hour and a half; 
and as it was a very hot July morning, we were com- 
pelled to rest once or twice during our route^ as the 
hot rays of the sun poured down upon our devoted 
heads. However, although the march was rather long, 
yet the novelty of parading through the crowded 
streets of New York, to embark on an Atlantic steamer 
for a pilgrimage of Europe, many of us for the first 
time, made us forget our weariness. /) U/A V) QX EdS't 

When we arrived at the pier, and got our first 
glimpse of the colossal steamer. City of Rome, which . i 
was to be our ark of refuge on the wild waste of ^"^ 
waters for the next eight or nine days probably, I was^V\CV| 
at once impressed by her unusual proportions, and in- 
stead of a feeling of uneasiness and repugnance at 
going on board of her, on the contrary, I was all im- 
patience to see what an ocean steamer was like ; for, 
although previous to that time, I had often seen them 
lying at the piers of the great metropolis, I had never, 
until that hour, trodden the deck of one. No doubt 
the exhilarating music of our superb band which, when 
our pilgrims marched on board two abreast, was play- . 
ing the liveliest and gayest melodies, had something to ^ 
do with my feelings on that occasion ; and then the 
bustle and haste of preparation for departure, the con- 



20 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

staiit ringing of the steamer's bell, the quick hurrying 
to and fro of friends bidding each other tender and 
affectionate farewells, some of them, perhaps, for ever, 
and the entire novelty of the surroundings, presented to 
the ' ' raw tourist ' ' a scene something like the constant 
shifting of a kaleidoscope. Although I saw a number 
of people shedding tears at parting with their friends, 
I knew neither chick nor child upon the pier to tell me 
a sad good-bye, and thus I escaped an ordeal which 
might, perchance, have turned my thoughts into a chan- 
nel equally sad. When the gallant ship swung around 
in the North River, and straightened herself out for 
another wrestle with Father Neptune, there was a per- 
fect crush of humanity upon the pier, waving their 
hats and handkerchiefs, and shouting their last fare- 
wells. Some of that vast crowd, no doubt, parted 
with some of us on board with tender and tearful 
anxiety, but the greater portion were, doubtless, drawn 
thither by idle curiosity, in order to see the " valiant 
and magnanimous Templars," whose departure had 
been heralded for several days previous by the leading 
papers of New York. 

When the great propeller began to revolve, and I 
could see that our steamer had really started on her 
journey across the vast expanse of waters, my sensa- 
tions were rather pleasurable than otherwise, but I 
was nevertheless reminded of an incident that I had 
somewhere read in regard to the celebrated explorer of 
Africa, Dr. Livingstone. After several years spent in 
the interior of Africa, and making the most impor- 



ON THE DEEP. 21 

tant discoveries, Livingstone arrived at an African coast 
town for the purpose of embarking for England, and 
giving to the world the fruits of his superhuman re- 
searches, made under circumstances most remarkable, 
and amidst dangers most appalling. He brought with 
him a faithful native, who had been to him " another 
Friday," and who had followed his perilous fortunes 
for several years past, and whom he had finally per- 
suaded after much entreaty, to go on board the ship 
to sail with him for England ; the poor black man, 
however, was ill at ease, and his terror was so great at 
the unusual spectacle, that, when the smoke began to 
pour out of the steamer's funnel, and the great wheels 
to revolve, the whole affair was too much for him, and 
with a shriek, he sprang over the steamer's side, and 
was seen no more. I did not feel like that, but what 
my further sensations were I leave for my reader to 
experience for himself, when he, too, for the first time 
in his life, becomes an ocean voyager. 

I must not forget to add that our escort from Chi- 
cago, of whom I have spoken above, and the Palestine 
Commandery, of New York, had chartered a steamer, 
the John C. Moore, and accompanied us down through 
the Narrows, and here we waved each other adieu, 
amid the shrieking of both steamers' whistles, the 
waving of handkerchiefs, the hurrahs time and again 
repeated, and one of the Chicago Templars, in his en- 
thusiasm, took off his uniform coat and waved it fran- 
tically aloft in the air as a Godspeed to us. 

As we sailed majestically down the North River, 



22 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

and passed its junction with the East River, I obtained 
my first glimpse of the grand new bridge which now 
spans that crowded stream, as the connecting link 
between the two great cities of New York and Brool?:- 
lyn ; and as it hung there, suspended in mid air, like 
a colossal spider-web seen in the distance, with its 
multifold meshes of wire, I said to myself, " this is 
indeed a glorious monument of engineering skilL" At 
this point, perhaps, a few statistics concerning our 
steamer, the City of Rome, which is the largest vessel 
in the world engaged in the ocean traffic, and which is 
second only in size to the famous Great Eastern, may 
be of interest to those who have never made an ocean 
voyage. The May Flower, which brought the Pilgrim 
Fathers to America, was of but one hundred and 
eighty tons burden, while this leviathan of the sea is 
of the monster to nage of 8,800 tons, or more than forty 
times the burden of May Flower. Such is the march 
of progress, since the days of our ancestors on this 
noble continent. The City of Rome carries a crew of 
276 officers and men, burns 275 tons of coal per day, 
and carries usually out of port 2,800 tons of coal. 
Her propellor is 24 feet in diameter, makes 60 revolu- 
tions per minute; her engines are equal to 15,000 
horse power; she has three engines, and three mon- 
ster funnels or smoke stacks. Her veteran commander. 
Captain Monroe, has seen forty years of service, and 
has been a Captain since he was twenty-four, and in all 
that time has had but one shipwreck, which, he told 
me, occurred off the coast of Ireland in 1868, and in 



ON THE DEEP. 23 

which seventy persons out of about one hundred and 
forty were lost, and he himself was at sea thirteen 
days in an open boat before help came. In compli- 
ment to the Pilgrims of Apollo, the printed lists of the 
steamer's passengers had on the back a Templar of the 
Middle Ages, mounted and equipped for the battle with 
the Saracen. 

As to the amusements on shipboard, they are more 
varied than one may imagine. For the first few days, 
the merely being on board the steamer on your way to 
see the glories and antiquities of a foreign land, fur- 
nishes the traveler sufficient food for thought if he 
does not happen to be sea sick, and, of course, most of 
them are more or less affected that way ; but after the 
first two or three days, as a rule, all that is past and 
gone; you have become pretty well accustomed to the 
motion of the ship, and the constant throb of its pon- 
derous machinery, and then you promenade the capa- 
cious decks with an enjoyment and exhilaration to be 
felt in no other place in the world. Of course, this 
can be done only in nice weather, but then you can use 
your telescope or opera glass in sighting vessels near 
the horizon, you can peer over the steamer's side, as 
she plows gallantly through the waves, and look for 
jelly fish or Mother Carey's chickens, now and then 
see a shoal of porpoises diving gracefully through the 
water, and occasionally, see a whale, the monarch of the 
deep. 

On our third day out from New York, while we were 
crossing the grand banks of Newfoundland, we saw sev- 



24 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

eral whales gaily disporting themselves near the stern of 
the ship, and, at intervals, we could see them sporting 
in the distance. You are not so lonely as you may 
imagine on the vast deep, but no where else in the 
world, with but a plank between you and eternity, 
does one feel so utterly his own insignificance, and 
feel so overwhelmingly that he is but a mere atom, as 
it were, in the universe of God, and that he doth truly 
hold man in the hollow of his hand. You are, how- 
ever, greatly comforted by the sight, every now and 
then, of the smoke of some distant steamer, whose hull 
is hid below the horizon, or of some glittering sail for 
which you might steer your course in time of need ; and 
especially, while crossing the Banks, we saw scores upon 
scores of fishing smacks engaged in fishing for cod, 
and occasionally we passed by them within easy hailing 
distance. One day, while we were seated at dinner, in 
the grand saloon of the steamer, we saw through the 
port holes a large ship pass very near us, and as seen 
through the port holes of the cabin, it looked very 
much like a stereoscopic view. The prettiest sight, 
however, of the whole voyage, I think, was the beauti- 
ful sunset of the first night, when we were fairly out 
of sight of land, and fast leaving behind us the beloved 
shores of our native America. Just before the sun 
sank beneath the horizon, and while his last rays were 
shooting across the waters in a perfect blaze of glory , 
a sailing vessel astern of us passed across his flaming 
disc, and almost eclipsed him for a moment, and it was 
a scene that I shall remember as lono; as life shall last. 



ON THE DEEP. 25 

As I caught the last flash of the monarch of day as he 
sank, full-orbed beneath the western waters, I thought 
of Childe Harold's beautiful and pathetic lament, under 
circumstances some what similar : — 

"Adieu, adieu, my native shore 
Fades o'er the waters blue; 
The night winds sigh, 
The breakers roar, 
And shrieks the wild sea new ; 
Yon sun that sinks beneath the sea, 
We follow in his flight, 
A short farewell to him and thee, 
My native land, good night." 

After the first day out, the weather became very 
foggy and disagreeable, and continued so during almost 
the entire trip, and especially for the first three or four 
days while passing the "Banks," and a part of the 
time, the deep and sonorous fog whistle was blown at 
frequent intervals, both day and night ; and when five 
days out, the steamer's log showed only 1,900 miles, 
and the weather was so raw and disagreeable that 
every one who promenaded the decks, or ventured to 
occupy his steamer chair, found it necessary to don 
his heaviest wrappings, or use his warmest lap rugs. 
While the fog whistle was being blown so frequently, 
I then realized our danger from collision, either with 
an iceberg, which sometimes happens in these Northern 
regions, or perhaps with some other steamer, or sailing 
vessel, but I consoled myself with the thought that if 
such a thing should occur, by reason of the immense 
size of our vessel, all built of steel, with water-tight 



26 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

compartments, we would, perhaps, not be so likely to go 
to Davy Jones' locker, as the ill-fated vessel with 
which we might collide ; and while in this train of 
thought, I was forcibly reminded of an incident related 
by Washington Irving, which was told him, by an old 
sea captain with whom he was making a voyage. 
Irving says that this sea captain told him a harrowing 
tale about once having run down a fishing smack in a 
fog off the " Banks," and of his having heard the 
shrieks of the poor drowning wretches as they were 
ushered into eternity without a moment's warning, 
while his ship plowed through the sinking vessel, and 
I wondered if we, too, were destined either to inflict or 
meet with such a woful mishap. While I was in this 
frame of mind, an oar went floating by the ship all in- 
crusted with barnacles, showing that it had been in the 
water for sometime, and I wondered if that, too, if it 
could but talk, could not perhaps relate some sad 
story of shipwreck and privation. After eight bells 
(twelve o'clock m. ) every day, the " log " of the day's 
run for the preceding twenty-four hours is made out, 
and transcribed on a chart, which is inclosed in a frame, 
and hung at the head of the cabin stairway, and there- 
upon, a great rush is made by the passengers to find 
out our latitude or longitude, and how much nearer our 
journey's end we are, than we were, at the same time 
the day before. 

Bets are frequently made by the passengers on the 
day's run, and it is amusing to see the eagerness of 
those who have money up, to find out how near they 



ON THE DEEP. 27 

are in their estimates, and, consequently, whether they 
have won or lost. Our steamer did not make her usual 
time owing to the fog alluded to above, but we will 
give here, her run for the first five days, in order to give 
those who have no idea of how many miles or knots an 
ocean steamer can make per day, some conception of 
their speed. 
To 8 bells, noon, July 15th ..... 332 miles. 

To 8 bells, noon, July 16th 385 miles. 

To 8 bells, noon, July 17th 395 miles. 

To 8 bells, noon, July 18th , . . . . 374 miles. 
To 8 bells, noon, July 19th 380 miles. 

Total in five days 1,866 miles. 

On Sunday, July 18th, the pilgrims in full regalia 
to the number of more than fifty, attended divine ser- 
vice in the grand saloon of the steamer, and never shall 
I forget the solemn feelings which attended my listen- 
ing to the word of Grod under such unusual and 
peculiar circumstances. Our ship, mighty and strongly 
built as it was, according to all the skill and ingenuity 
of man, was as a speck on the face of the mighty 
waters, which was liable to be blotted out at any mo- 
ment by the Omnipotent hand of God. The beautiful 
service of the Episcopal Church was read by Sir, the 
Rev. Dr. Haff, of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and an eloquent 
and forcible sermon was preached by Sir Dr. Greo. C. 
Lorimer, a noted Baptist divine, of Chicago. He also 
preached to the steerage passengers in the evening. 
On Thursday evening, a concert was given by talent 



28 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

selected from our party, for the benefit of the children 
of sailors in the Liverpool Orphan Institution, which 
netted about $100. By the way, I must not here omit 
to tell a little joke on the Reverend Dr. Lorimer, who 
is by birth a " Canny Scot," but who has lived in this 
country for a score of years, and who also married at 
Harrodsburg, in the writer's native State. * * * A 
party of us were sitting in the purser's cosy oflSce one 
evening, listening to the doctor quoting Burns, as only 
an educated Scotchman can, when he commenced tell- 
ing us about a reverend friend of his in Perth, Scot- 
land, his own birthplace, and he said that he had often 
had a good time there with his friends cracking jokes, 
telling Scotch yarns. — " Yes," spoke up, in his dry, 
droll way, the purser, Mr. McKay (himself also a 
Scot), " and takin' a little Scotch whisky, too." We 
all smiled, — the doctor included. Among oiir most 
distinguished Templars, was the Honorable Philetus 
Sawyer of Wisconsin , now United States Senator from 
that State. Senator Sawyer, notwithstanding his high 
position and immense wealth, which is estimated at 
$4,000,000, mainly amassed in the lumber business in 
that State, is one of the most genial and sociable of 
men, and gave me some interesting particulars of his 
life, which I will briefly recount here. He told me 
that he was born in Vermont in 1816, and when he was 
seventeen years of age he bought his time of his 
father for $100, which he had borrowed of his brother. 
He came West in 1847, when he was thirty-one years 
old, and he has since been Mayor of Oshkosh, a mem- 



ON THE DEEP. 29 

ber of the Wisconsin Legislature, five times in Con- 
gress, and now in the United States Senate, and any 
poor and humble boy in the land may take courage 
for the battle of life from the distinguished Senator's 
career. We also had with our party Ex-Governor 
Beveridge, of Illinois, who became Governor when 
General Oglesby was elected to the United States 
Senate, but, he was not the only *' beverage " on board 
by a good deal, for a great many of the passengers 
seemed to favor a new version of Coleridge's "Ancient 
Mariner," as instead of "Water, water everywhere, 
nor any drop to drink," they seemed to prefer the 
rendering thus: "Water, water everywhere, 7ior«riy 
drop we drink. ^^ 

On Friday afternoon, July 20th, just before sunset, 
the sun was very clear and bright, and a beautiful rain- 
bow formed directly over the bow of the ship, and 
it seemed auspicious to us of the happy end of our 
voyage — it seemed as though the arc of promise had 
appeared in the heavens, especially for us, and I heard 
a gentleman who had crossed the sea several times say 
it was the grandest sight he had ever beheld on the 
ocean. On the next afternoon, the coast of Ireland 
was sighted, and at about 1 a. m. on Sunday morning 
we anchored off Queenstown, and sent up rockets for 
the tug to come out to us, and take off the passengers 
and baggage for Ireland ; and as some of our party 
were to leave us here, I staid up to see them off, and 
I felt well repaid, as I got a fine view of the harbor 
of Cork, which -is noted for its beauty, just at 



30 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

daylight, as our steamer was proceeding on her way 
to Liverpool. 

As we steamed out of the harbor, we met a large 
steamer which was also making signals for a tug, and as 
we passed by each other, I thought of the people on 
her, homeward bound, who had already seen the strange 
and wonderful things which were, as yet, in store for 
us. That day about 2 p. m., we anchored at the 
mouth of the Mersey, in order to wait for the tide, as 
our steamer was drawing too much water to get over the 
bar. That night at about 11 o'clock we weighed 
anchor, and by 1 a. m. the lights of Liverpool were 
in full view from the forecastle, and our voyage was 
all but ended. Of course, everybody on board the ship 
was up betimes that morning, and anxious to go 
ashore, but as it rains about two-thirds of the time in 
England, we could not get along without a rain to 
begin with, and everybody was abusing *« the blasted 
country; " but by the time we had disposed of our 
breakfast, and gotten our baggage ready to go ashore, 
the clouds had dispersed somewhat, and the rain had 
ceased, to our intense gratification. We went on 
board of the tug, and leaving our quondam home 
behind us, we went up the river past the huge docks 
for some distance, and finally landed on British soil. 
I expected to stagger and reel like a drunken man, 
from what I had been told and read, but much to my 
surprise, as soon as I landed on terra firma, I could walk 
as comfortably and as easily as I ever could, and thus 
one more error regarding sea-life was dispelled for- 



ARRIVAL AT LIVERPOOL. 31 

ever. The next thing in order was the examination of 
our baggage, which we had all looked forward to as 
the greatest bugbear of our tour, but this was gotten 
through with most expeditiously and courteously, con- 
sidering our number (our Masonic party, then num- 
bering probably one hundred persons,) and the amount 
of our baggage, and I heard no complaint upon the 
part of any one about discourtesy by the British offi- 
cinls. About the only things interdicted in that coun- 
try of free trade are cigars and fire-ajms, and I pre- 
sume that very few of our party had any fire-arms, 
and still fewer cigars when they landed, so I take it 
for granted that there was very little trouble on that 
score. We found carriages in waiting at the top of 
the landing stage, all designated by a Maltese cross, 
and we were rapidly driven to our hotel, where we 
were to dine previous to our departure for York, " the 
home of ancient Yorke " Masonry, and at which place, 
we were to be entertained, on the evening of the next 
day by the ancient Ebor Preceptory of that city. 
There is not much of note to be seen in Liverpool, and 
I shall only speak of a few things we saw during the 
few hours we remained there. The most notable thing 
in Liverpool is its immense shipping interests, it being 
the commercial entrepot of Great Britain, and its enor- 
mous docks, which extend along the river Mersey for 
six miles, and which enclose nearly 300 acres, and 
at Birkenhead, opposite the city of Liverpool, nearly 
200 acres more, thus giving Liverpool the facilities for 
handling by far the largest commerce of any seaport 



32 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

in the world. Each dock has its own name, and 
among the most prominent I noticed " Waterloo," a 
name especially dear to every English heart. Right 
opposite the hotel where we dined, is situated St. 
George's Hall, which is quite a handsome structure of 
considerable size, the eastern front being over 400 
feet long, and supported by numerous Corinthian col- 
umns nearly fifty feet in height ; in front of this hall, 
are to be seen the famous " Liverpool lions," four in 
number, of colossal size, and sculptured from stone, 
and, also, the handsome equestrian statues of Prince 
Albert and Queen Victoria. Near this square, are to 
be seen the monument of Lord Wellington, inscribed 
with the names of his various victories in Spain and 
elsewhere, and the free museum which contains, prob- 
ably, the finest collection of ornithological specimens 
in the world, and shows to its fullest extent the skill of 
the taxidermist. 

There are, also, the Walker Gallery, which contains 
some very handsome paintings and statuary, and the 
Brown, and the Picton Libraries, which, between them, 
contain nearly 50,000 volumes. While I was saunter- 
ing leisurely through the Walker Gallery, my eye fell 
upon what I soon found to be a miniature cast of 
Windsor Castle, the most elegant of all the residences 
of British royalty, and while I was looking at it with 
very considerable interest, a workman who had been 
busily engaged near me, stepped up to me, and asked 
me what that was. I looked at him with some amaze- 
ment, thinking at first that he was trying to " chaff 



ENGLISH BAILROADS. 33 

me," but finally, taking him to be in earnest, I said to 
him, " Why, this is where your Queen lives." 

He then said to me that, he had never been nearer 
than fifty miles from London, and did not know about 
Windsor Castle. Then I thought to myself, if that 
was a fair sample of the intelligence of the English 
working classes, that England's boastful claims about 
the superiority of her institutions, and, in fact of all 
things English, over her youthful offspring, and her 
greatest rival, America, was all the veriest " rot and 
Buncombe." It was here, that I first saw the two-story 
street railroad bars, or " tram cars ", as they call them, 
and it seemed strange to see women and men, indis- 
criminately, climbing up to the top of the cars, by 
means of a winding stairway, and it reminded me some- 
what of New York, about seventeen years ago, in the 
days of the elevated bridge over Broadway, at the cor- 
ner of Fulton Street, and which so darkened the busi- 
ness house of "Knox, the hatter," that he recovered 
damages from the city, and the bridge was soon taken 
down. That afternoon, most of us had our first expe- 
rience with English railway " carriages," as they call 
them, when we left in a special train for York, 
about 2p.m. 

These boasted carriages are much shorter than an 
American railway coach, and hold about half as many 
people, thirty being about as many as they generally 
carry. They are divided into compartments, which 
hold from six to eight persons, who get in at a door 
at the side of the carriage, and half of the party must, 
3 



34 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

of Decessity, ride backwards, as the two seats face each 
other, and so only half of the occupants of each car- 
riage can sit by a window, so as to enjoy the scenery, 
while the remainder of the party must see as best they 
can, unless their friends by the window, occasionally, 
allow them their seats in order that they may thus ob- 
tain a flying glance at the surrounding scenery. There 
can, of course, be no retiring apartments, with scarcely 
an exception, in carriages of this description, and 
there is, besides, danger that you may find yourself, 
perchance, locked up in one of these compartments 
with a madman, a robber, or a ruffian, and more than 
once, in the last few years, has life been lost, or horri- 
ble violence perpetrated in these compartments, which 
are so difierent from our American style of traveling, 
where all are thrown together in one common apart- 
ment, and where a lady may travel, entirely unaccom- 
panied, with the most perfect safety. 

The passengers moreover have no means of communi- 
cation with the " driver," or the " guard " of the train, 
as a general thing, and are perfectly helpless in the pres- 
ence of danger. The " guard " calls no stations, and 
you can rarely ascertain where you are. The doors 
are generally kept locked, but that does not matter 
so much, as the upper half of each is of glass, which, 
could, of course, be easily broken out by the passen- 
ger, if he should desire to do so ; in fact, he can get 
out of these English carriages in case of necessity, as 
a rule, more easily than out of one of our own, but 
that is the only advantage which they have over us, as 



ENGLISH RAILROADS. 35 

far as I can see. These carriages are divided into 
first, second, and third class ; the cost for third class 
being only about half of the first, but these are very 
common indeed, as they have no cushions, or curtains 
of any kind whatever. In Germany, they have even a 
fourth class, in which the passengers stand up like so 
many cattle. The first-class carriages are quite luxu- 
rious, and our tourist tickets entitled us to them all the 
time, but we, occasionally, were compelled by unfore- 
seen circumstances to try a second-class carriage, and 
we found these quite nice enough for anybody ; in fact, 
they are more patronized, a great deal, by the better 
classes of European travelers, than the more expensive 
first-class, from which has, no doubt, originated the 
saying that *' none but fools and Americans ride first- 
class in Europe." The '• driver " and " stoker " have 
no protection from the weather, or next to none, as the 
best engines either have no cab at all, or else only a 
little projection, perhaps eighteen inches wide, over 
their heads, which in bad weather I should think was 
next to nothing. I remember, distinctly, that the 
engine which pulled us from London to Folkestone, a 
week or so later, when we were on our way to the 
Continent, had no cab at all, and we left Charing- 
Cross station in a driving rain. There is, most sur- 
prising of all, no provision whatever for heating the 
carriages, so that each passenger in the winter season 
must furnish his own outfit of hot bricks, railway 
rugs, etc. There is one redeeming feature, however, 
about these English railways, which is this : they rarely 



36 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

ever cross each other's track on the same level, and 
their depots, stations, and all their equipment, road- 
bed, etc., are much more substantial than ours; all 
this, no doubt, because foreign railway stocks are not 
'* watered " like our own. At the stations, they gen- 
erally have bridges over the tracks for the use of pas- 
sengers, or tunnels under them, so that, with them, 
human life is much safer from railway casualties than 
with us, and persons who take the liberty of walking 
along the road-bed of their railways, are arrested and 
punished severely for trespass, and this also reduces 
the number of accidents. 

They have, however, to offset all these admirable 
features, no such simple system of checking baggage 
as we have, but they register it, that is to say, they 
take your name and address, and write it in their 
books, and then put a corresponding ticket on the 
"luggage," as they call it. Of course, this is not 
half as, good as our system of checks, but it seems to 
be the best they can do. Now, for our journey 
to York, where we expect to have a grand old 
*' Masonic Love-Feast" to-morrow night, in that 
famous city, which is known as the " Metropolis of 
the North," and which should be doubly dear to every 
Masonic heart. Soon after steaming out from the 
station at Liverpool, we passed through a long and 
disagreeable tunnel, and, then, for some distance, the 
country was very mountainous, or rolling heavily, but 
after a while, we began to see some of the beautiful 
landscapes, and highly cultivated fields for which En- 



ENGLISH LANDSCAPES. 37 

gland is famous. Of course, every foot of ground in 
the *' Tight Little Island," must be utilized in one 
way or another, because she has a j)opulation of nearly 
forty millions (more than one-tenth of this in the city 
of London), which must be fed, and therefore every 
available foot of ground must be cultivated, except, of 
course, those lordly domains scattered here and there, 
throughout England, consisting of thousands and tens 
of- thousands of acres, of which their titled owners 
usually make a vast show-place. England, however, 
fortunately for her enormous population, is not so en- 
tirely dependent upon the cultivation of her soil as 
the people of France, who are, pre-eminently, an agri- 
cultural people. In France, the tilling of the soil is 
the chief occupation of her people. In England, on 
the other hand, her crops might fail for several suc- 
cessive seasons, and yet her manufactures would keep 
her people from utter want. It is for this reason, that 
you see in England many more beautiful residences, 
large pleasure grounds, immense parks, flower gardens, 
etc., than you ever see in France. In riding from 
Boulogne to Paris, and from Paris to Geneva, you 
pass over countless miles of flat, marshy country, ex- 
tending for leagues in every direction, and forming,. at 
times, one monotonous and boundless plain, which is 
seldom relieved by the presence of a handsome chateau, 
or tolerable-looking country house, while England, in 
July, is a beautiful country, and most fair to look upon, 
and in some portions we saw of it, especially in York- 
shire, and, from York, " up " to London, it reminded 



38 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

me forcibly of the noted Blue Grass regions of my 
own Kentucky home, which, I think, with, perhaps, a 
pardonable pride, are " the fairest the sun ever shone 
on." 

Oil our way to York, we passed through several of the 
great manufacturing cities of England — Manchester, 
Leeds, and Birmingham, and I saw at a glance the 
great difference between their buildings and ours. 
Frame buildings are almost unheard of in England, 
and a house more than four or five stories high in their 
cities, is a rarity, except in Edinboro, where we after- 
wards saw some buildings at the foot of the Calton 
Hill, which were nine or ten stories in height. Most of 
the houses have a musty, weather-beaten look, partly 
from their age, as well as from the extreme dampness 
of the climate in a country where it rains more than 
half the time, and is cloudy almost all the balance. 



CHAPTER II. 



YOEK, AND ITS RELATION TO THE INSTITUTION OF FREE- 
MASONRY. 

T\^7'E arrived at York about six p. m., and our 

J^v train glided into one of the finest, and most 

magnificent passenger stations in England, which is 

built entirely of iron and glass, and is more than a 



YORK, AND ITS RELATION TO FREEMASONRY. 39 

quarter of a mile in length. It is built in a curve, and 
is truly a wonderful piece of architecture, and the 
Koyal Station Hotel, which adjoins the depot, at which 
a portion of our party occupied rooms, and where the 
entire party obtained their meals during our stay in 
York, is one of the most elegant and handsomely fur- 
nished hotels, either in Europe or America, and Amer- 
icans know that their country is hard to surpass in 
that particular. The writer, in common with a num- 
ber of other Sir Knights, was sent to the " Matthews 
Temperance and Family Hotel," but we soon discov- 
ered, that this "alleged temperance hotel " had the 
usual adjunct of " a bar and a bar-maid," more or less 
handsome and attractive, just like all other well regu- 
lated English hostelries. This hotel was run and 
managed altogether by females, as we found many of 
the hotels outside the great cities, and they seemed to 
manage things pretty well, too. Of course, we were 
met at the train by the usual Masonic committee, and 
made heartily welcome to the seat of " ancient York 
Masonry." 

As we stepped out of the depot to walk into the 
Koyal Hotel, right before us loomed up, in all its 
venerable antiquity, the old Eoman wall, which once 
encircled the ancient city of York, (or Ehoracum^ in 
the Latin tongue), and for which, next to the grand 
old Minster, with its " dim religious light," York is 
famous the world over. There, right before us, and 
scarcely a hundred yards away, was a very high section 
of the wall, perhaps forty feet in height, still strong 



40 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

and massive, and which had resounded to the tramp 
of the famous legions of Imperial Rome, as far back 
as the first century of the Christian era. So great 
was my interest in this ancient wall, that, as soon as 
possible, after seeing myself comfortably located at 
my hotel, and hastily satisfying the wants of the inner 
man, after our journey from Liverpool, I mounted the 
wall which has, to this day, a parapet sufficiently wide 
for a comfortable promenade, and which is quite a 
resort for the good people of York ; and while I was 
leisurely sauntering around the walls, and looking at 
the quaint old city, which was spread out around and 
below me in every direction, where I spent some time, 
as night is late coming on in those northern latitudes, 
which approach towards the " land of the midnight 
sun," my thoughts unconsciously reverted to the days 
of my boyhood, and to the stories of Roman valor, as 
recounted by Tacitus, Sallust and Csesar. 

York, aside from its connection with the institution 
of Freemasonry, (and to which fact we were mainly 
indebted, no doubt, for our invitation by the Free- 
masons of that city, to make them a kind of interna- 
tional visit, as it were), is one of the most interesting 
of English cities, and, therefore, before entering upon 
a description of York, and its intimate relationship to 
the Masonic fraternity, we trust that we shall be par- 
doned, if we devote a few pages to this ancient city, 
from a historical standpoint. After the Roman occu- 
pation of Britain, which continued from the first to the 
fifth century, this city was the scene of successive 



YORK, AND ITS RELATION TO FREEMASONRY. 41 

struggles between Briton, Saxon, and Dane. York is 
especially famous in all Christian lands, as the place 
where our modern recognition and celebration of 
Christmas .was first instituted, this sacred " day of 
days" having been kept by good King Arthur, and 
the Knights of the Bound Table, in A. D. 521 ; and he, 
also, rebuilt the churches of the old city, which were 
then in ruins. The walls, to this day, afford a continu- 
ous walk of several miles, particularly on the western 
side of the river Ouse, which divides the city into two 
portions, and at frequent intervals are found strong 
towers pierced with arrow slits for cross-bowmen, 
which, of course, were a prominent feature of the mili- 
tary equipment of those feudal times. 

William, the Conqueror, captured York in 1068, and 
built a castle there, which stands to this day, although 
in a very imperfect state of preservation ; and within 
the castle walls, which are very strong and massive, 
the courts of York are regularly held. Of course, we 
have all read of the <' Wars of the Eoses," between 
the noted houses of York and Lancaster, the house of 
York being known as the white rose, and the house of 
Lancaster as the red. Our own metropolis of New 
York, with twenty times its population, takes its name 
from this old capital of the North. When King Eich- 
ard First ascended the throne of England in 1190, ter- 
rible massacres took place among the Jews all over 
England; the worst butchery of all, taking place here, 
where it has been calculated, that as many as 2,000 of 
these persecuted people, were butchered in cold blood. 



42 A KNTGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

The English Parliaments were held in this city for 
centuries, before the capital was removed to London, 
and no less than twelve of these Parliaments were held 
here, during the reigns of Edward II. and Edward III. 
During the contests between the ill-fated and unhappy- 
monarch, Charles I., and the Parliamentary forces, 
under the great Roundhead leader, Cromwell, the city 
of York, true to its royal traditions, was loyal to the 
King. 

It was besieged for some time, but held out faith- 
fully, and when the fiery Prince Rupert, the nephew 
of King Charles, with 20,000 cavaliers, came to raise the 
siege, which he succeeded in doing, the King's forces, 
flushed with victory, imprudently withdrew from be- 
hind the fortifications of the royal city, and, next, met 
the enemy on the fatal field of Marston Moor. Here, 
but seven or eight miles from York, was fought one 
of the bloodiest battles which ever took place on En- 
glish ground, and the fanatical soldiers of the great 
Roundhead leader utterly routed the forces of the 
King, and there forged one more link in the chain 
which was, finally, to bring the head of the impolitic 
monarch to the block. The next morning, which was 
Tuesday, July 24th, our party were gathered together, 
and, under the guidance of Bro. T. B. Whytehead, 
Past Master, and one of the most eminent Masons of 
Yorkshire, we were conducted to the various inter- 
esting sights of York. We first visited the gardens of 
the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, which contain 
the beautiful remains of St. Mary's Abbey, as well as 



ANCIENT RUINS. 43 

the Museums of Natural History and Antiquity, which 
the society owns. The first thing of interest which 
strikes the observer, is the multangular Tower which, 
according to the best antiquarians, dates back to the Ro- 
man occupation, and, therefore, ranks in antiquity, and 
interest , with the Roman wall. Near this, are the remains 
of St. Leonard's Hospital, which was not a religious in- 
stitution, but entirely of a secular order, and which 
dates back to the twelfth century. The most interesting 
ruin, however, is that of St. Mary's Abbey, a Bene- 
dictine Monastery, which was the richest and most 
influential of any of the order in the north of England. 
The original foundation of the Abbey dates back to 
1078, but that structure was destroyed by fire, and 
the present one, whose ruins are yet to be seen, was 
founded in 1270. 

The principal remains to be seen, is the north wall 
of the nave of the church, which has still eight of the 
large windows remaining. This old ruin, covered with 
ivy, creeping in and out at the windows, is a very inter- 
esting one, and in looking around the foundations of 
the destroyed portions of the Abbey, our party dis- 
covered a number of <' marks," which were undoubt- 
edly the genuine marhs of the speculative, as well as 
operative Freemasons who worked in the old Abbey. 

We afterwards saw, in the crypts of the grand old 
Cathedral, undoubted evidences that Freemasonry had 
helped to rear that unequal ed specimen of pure Gothic 
architecture. Next, we proceeded to the Minster, and 
when the view of that unexampled structure burst 



44 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

upon US, all at once, as we suddenly turned the corner 
of the street, not being aware that we were so very 
near, most of us were totally unprepared for the 
glorious spectacle which was presented to our aston- 
ished eyes. Like all the great cathedrals of Europe, 
this, the first specimen of the architecture of the 
Middle Ages which we had seen thus far on our tour, 
is in the form of the Latin cross, its extreme length 
(or the portion which, in all these ecclesiastical struc- 
tures, is known as the nave), being 524 feet, and its 
breadth, (or the transept) 222 feet, and it has two 
towers, each', 196 feet in height. We may here remark, 
once for all, that the term nave always means that 
portion of this class of structures which is the 
longest, and the term transept, the width, or, in other 
words, alludes to the cross piece of the cross, after 
which they are invariably modeled, as suggested above. 
The present structure was founded about 1170, and 
completed about 1400, A. D. The most wonderful 
thing in the great Cathedral, is the famous east window, 
which is said to be 75 feet in height, and 30 feet in 
diameter, and to the eye, unaccustomed to such sights, 
it seems really greater. This is the largest stained 
glass window in the world, and contains a vast number 
of representations of scenes and characters taken from 
the Scriptures. The west window does not compare 
with this, in size, or in magnificence, nor is it entirely 
Scriptural, as it contains the portrait of a number of 
the earlier Archbishops of York. 

It may be well to state here, that York has one of the 



MASONIC FEATURES. 45 

two Archbishops of, England, Canterbury having the 
other, which fact shows the ancient importance of this 
city in the Christian world, as London itself, the great- 
est metropolis of the universe, has only a Bishop. This 
structure is said to be the most purely Gothic specimen 
of architecture to be found in Europe, and it would take 
a volume to describe it, so we will leave the matter in 
the hands of some more ambitious writer. Before 
leaving the Minster, several of us ascended the Lantern 
Tower, and obtained a glorious view of the city, and 
of the beautiful country, for miles in every direction, 
and surely Yorkshire never presented a more lovely 
panorama, than on that glorious Jiily morning. We 
now pass to the purely Masonic features of our visit 
to York, and hope that those of our readers, if any we 
have, who are not Freemasons, nor interested in an 
order which proudly traces its origin back to the build- 
ing of King Solomon's Temple, will either bear with us 
for a few pages, or pass a little further along in the 
book, which will be found thenceforth mostly of a de- 
scriptive character. Before alluding to the banquet, 
which was given to us American Freemasons, in such 
handsome style, by our trans- Atlantic brethren, it is 
the desire of the writer of this feeble tribute to 
the courtesy of the Masons of York, to state here 
some facts concerning the early history of the 
Craft, which we trust will be of interest to every 
"Free and Accepted Mason, wheresoever he may be 
dispersed on the face of the globe." From a notable 



46 A KNIGHT TEaiPLAR ABROAD. 

address, delivered a few years since, before the Grand 
Co mmandery of Kentucky, byKev. Brother, and Sir S. 
W. Young, formerly a resident of the city of London, 
we take the liberty of quoting the following historical 
account of the antiquity of our Order, and of the noble 
part which the city of York has taken in the revival 
and promulgation of the Craft during, and swce, the 
Middle Ages. That distinguished brother and writer, 
speaks as follows : — 

*' I feel it a very high honor, indeed, to address an 
audience so distinguished, on so noble a subject as 
Masonry. A church has anathematized our Order, 
monarchs have persecuted it, and fools have sneered at 
its mysteries, yet, to-day, a million Masons are bound 
together in a love so fruitful, and a harmony so serene, 
as to bear no ecclesiastical comparisons, under an or- 
ganization and discipline more perfect, than those of the 
armies of kings, and under the instruction of a wisdom 
so calm, and so solid, that it looks with un angered 
pity at its ignorant traducers. If Cyclopedias reflect 
current opinion, Freemasonry is supposed to be a 
modern invention, having only imaginary roots in the 
historic past. I would like to show you briefly to- 
night, that our claims to antiquity are no mere empty 
blazon. Students of history are well aware, that Craft- 
guilds are as old as the republics of Greece, or the first 
kingdom of Rome, and stretch away into the dim 
antiquity which shrouds the origin of the civilization 
of the Valley of the Nile. Amongst those guilds, that 



ANTIQUITY OF THE CRAFT. 47 

of the master-builders was one of the earliest and most 
honored. The recent removal of the Alexandrian mon- 
olith has shown, that its foundations had been, in the 
far off past, well and truly laid, in due and ancient 
form, according to the traditions, and ritual of the 
craft. Our Anglo-Saxon Masonry is lineally descended 
from the Masonic Colleges of Kome, which traced 
their pedigree to the foundation of Numa Pompilius, 
715 B. C, and, through him, hack to Jerusalem and 
King Solomon. In 526 B. C, the Collegia were es- 
tablished in Great Britain, and one of the Inspectors, 
or Grand Masters, was St. Alban, who had the honor 
of being the first Christian martyr in the island. 

The headquarters of the Craft were in the city of York. 
In A. D., 614, Pope Boniface IV., conferred on them 
the sole right of erecting religious buildings, and 
declared them free of taxation. In 925, A. D., King 
Athelstane convoked the Grand Lodge, and fixed the 
seat of the Grand Mastership' at York. In A. D., 959, 
St. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, was elected 
Grand Master. King Edward, the Confessor, and King 
Henry IV., filled the same office, and subsequently 
King Henry VI., James I., and Charles II. The 
great architect. Sir Christopher "Wren, was Grand 
Master of the Order, and, in 1703, when the building of 
the great Metropolitan Cathedral w;js completed, the 
Lodge of St. Paul passed a resolution, that ' the privi- 
leges of Freemasonry be no longer confined to opera- 
tive Masons, but, be free to all men of all professions.' 



48 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Thus, did operative Masonry, by opening its doors to 
the learned and good of all professions, spiritualize its 
technical teachings, and make the Craft symbolical of 
wisdom and virtue. From Great Britain, the reorgan- 
ized Craft spread all over the globe, and to-day num- 
bers, in North America, alone, one million souls. 
Freemasonry is broad-based on a morality, as wide as 
the human race, and Christian, Jew, Moslem, and 
Brahman, can clasp hands over its altars." 

*«Lamartine, in his famous history of the Giron- 
dists, while speaking of the influence which the 
tolerant reign of Frederic II. (known in history, how- 
ever, much better by the title of ' Frederic the 
Great,') had upon the institution of Freemasonry in 
the eighteenth century, used the following language : 
" Great men always bequeath the impulse of their 
spirit to their country. The reign of Frederic had, at 
least, one happy result ; Teligious tolerance arose in 
Germany from the very contempt in which Frederic 
held religious creeds. Under the wing of this tolera- 
tion, the spirit of philosophy had organized occult 
associations, after the image of Freemasonry. The 
German princes were initiated. It was thought an act 
of superior mind, to penetrate into those shadows 
which, in reality^ included nothing beyond some gen- 
eral principles of humanity and virtue, with no direct 
application to civil institutions. Frederic, in his youth, 
had been initiated, himself, at Brunswick, by Major 



EARLY HISTORY. 49 

Bielfield ; the Emperor Joseph II., the most bold inno- 
vator of his time, had, also, desired to undergo these 
proofs at Vienna, under the tutelage of the Baron 
de Born, the chief of the Freemasons of Austria. 

These societies, which had no religious tendency in 
England, (but is not the learned author, to say the 
least, a little far-fetched in that statement?) because, 
there, liberty conspired openly in Parliament, and the 
press, had a wholly different sense on the Continent. 
There, they were the secret council clmmhers of inde- 
pendent thouglit; the thought, escaping from books, 
passed into action. Between the initiated and estab- 
lished institutions, the war was concealed, but the more 
deadly. The hidden agents of these societies had, evi- 
dently, for aim the creation of a government of the 
opinion of the human race, in opposition to the govern- 
ment of prejudice. They desired to reform religious^ 
political, and civil society, beginning hy the most re- 
fined classes. These Lodges were the catacombs of a 
new worship. The sect of Illumines, or llluminati, 
(that is to say, the intelligent, or enlightened), founded 
and guided by Weishaupt, was spreading in Germany, 
in conjunction with the Freemasons, and Rosicru- 
cians.." 

Such is the tribute, though unwilling, I take it to be, 
which has been paid to the genius of Freemasonry, 
by one who was, no doubt, opposed to the institution, 
because the italics are not those of the eloquent his- 
torian, but the compiler of this brief and imperfect 

4 



50 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

sketch of the history of Fremasoniy, has taken this 
method of showing that, even the historian of a Cath- 
olic country, which is notoriously opposed, as are all 
Catholic countries, to the tenets and principles of this 
noble institution (and the crusade against which is 
led, at this very hour, by the Pope of Rome, himself, 
Leo XIII.), has readily admitted that it has for 
its foundation stone, " some general principles of 
humanity and virtue." But, as the French say, Reve- 
nons a nos moufons, after this digression, which, we 
trust, will be pardoned in consideration of what has 
been contributed, meantime, to the further enlightment 
of the Craft, and, now, to begin once more where we left 
off. The writer owes to the courtesy of Eminent Com- 
mander Gassette, a copy of the pamphlet entitled, '* The 
Masonic Reception at York, on Monday Septem- 
ber 5th, 1881," (which was more than two years 
prior to our visit) " under the Auspices of the 
York and Eboracum Lodges, with a full Report of the 
Addresses given, the Ancient Documents and Relics 
Exhibited, and an Alphabetical List of the Brethren 
Present, byBro. T. B. Whytehead, P. M.," who has 
been spoken of above, and to which document we are 
indebted for some interesting facts concerning the his- 
tory of ancient York Masonry, which we suspect are 
known to but few of the Craft on this side of the 
Atlantic, and, in this belief, we reproduce them here, 
trusting that they will prove a welcome contribution 
to Masonic knowledge. Before doing this, however, 



NOTICE OF THE PRESS. 51 

we shall copy a brief notice of our Pilgrims, which 
appeared in the New York Herald, on the next day 
after our arrival : — 

*' AMERICAN FREEMASONS AT YORK. 

"About a hundred members of the Mason Craft, 
including about eighty Knights Templar, from Chi- 
cago, under the conduct of Mr. Norman Cassette of 
that city, arrived in York yesterday, accompanied 
by a number of ladies, the party being on a tour 
through Europe. The voyageurs arrived in Liverpool, 
yesterday morning, by the splendid steamship. City of 
Kome, and reached York by special train, yester- 
day evening, the trans-Atlantic brethren having ac- 
cepted the invitation of the Ancient Ebor Preceptory of 
Knights Templar. To-day a meeting of the Knights 
Templars of this province will be held, by the 
invitation of Lord Londesborough, at the Masonic 
Hall, Duncombe Place, where Mr. T. E. W. Tew, 
of Pontefract, the Provincial Prior of West Yorkshire, 
will preside, in the unavoidable absence of his Lordship, 
and with the object of making the meeting a county 
affair. The visitors will be conducted through the 
city, and its principal objects of interest shown them, 
and, in the afternoon, they will be entertained at din- 
ner at the Guild Hall, when the Lord Mayor, the city 
sheriff, and other prominent Masons, are expected to 
be present. The party will leave York for London 
to-morrow." 



52 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

We will begin our quotations from the pamphlet 
above referred to, by giving a summary of a paper 
read at the reception alluded to, as having occurred 
on September 5th, 1881, on " The Records etc., in 
the Archives of the York Lodge," by Bro. J. Todd, 
P. M., York Lodge. 

" In Masonic history, the ancient city of York has, 
from a very early period, held an important and prom- 
inent position; indeed, there is no place more interest- 
ing to the Masonic student, than the city which, by 
tradition, and the evidence of ancient manuscript 
Constitutions, is marked as the early seat of Masonry 
in this country. Nearly all the old Constitutions, of 
which there are upwards of twenty in existence, men- 
tion York as the place where, in early times, the meet- 
ings, or assemblies, of the Craft were held, and, from 
these meetings, or assemblies, there is little, or no 
doubt, that the Grand Lodge of all England, formerly 
held in this city, was originally constituted. It seems 
that the term ' Freemason ' is of, comparatively, mod- 
ern origin, as, until the year 1704, the term ' Mason ' 
was the one generally in use. This is seen to be 
the case, from inspection of Roll No. 2, which is the 
most modern of the York MSS., and is written on 
parchment, and is headed ' The Constitutions of 
Masonry, 1703.' The minute book (of the Grand 
Lodge) commencing December 27th, 1774, and end- 
ing July 31st, 1780, and the minutes of the Grand 
Chapter at York, commencing February, 1778, and 



ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS. 53 

ending 10th of September, 1781, were discovered by 
Bro. Hughan, amongst the records of the Grand Lodge 
of London, and, afterwards, restored to us. The lat- 
ter book is interesting, as containing a minute of a 
Koyal Arch Chapter's having been held in the crypt of 
York Minster, on Sunday, May 27th, 1778. The 
minute is as follows : — 

" ' York Cathedral, 27th of May, 1778 ; the Eoyal 
Arch Brethren whose names are under mentioned, as- 
sembled in the Ancient Lodge, now a sacred recess 
within the Cathedral Church of York, and, then and 
there, opened a Chapter of Free and Accepted Masons 
in the most sublime degree of Royal Arch.' (Here 
follow the names of nine (9) brethren. * The Chapter 
was held, and then closed in usual fprm, being ad- 
journed to the first Sunday in June, except in case of 
emergency.' In the Grand Lodge minute book, 
under date of February, 1780, is a record of the pro- 
ceedings of the Companions of the Honorable Order 
of Knights Templars, and, subsequently, a resolution 
was agreed to, affirming the authority of the Grand 
Lodge over the five Degrees, or Orders of Masonry, 
viz.: 1st, Entered Apprentice; 2nd, Fellow Craft; 
3rd, Master Mason; 4th, Knight Templar: 5tli, 
Royal Arch." (The writer is here inclined to think, 
that there must have been some typographical error 
in this statement, which places the degree of Knight 
Templar precedent to that of Royal Arch, for the 
reason that, in a quotation which will be given a little 
further on, the Templar Degree is placed subsequent 



54 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

to that of Eoyal Arch, which is, more than likely, the 
proper order of conferring these degrees among En- 
glish Masons of the present day, and which is the order 
observed habitually among the Masons of this coun- 
try). This Grand Lodge of York was the only Grand 
Lodge of Great Britain , which recognized the Order of 
the Templars. There is, also, a certificate issued by the 
Grand Lodge, signed John Brown, G. S., as follows; 
"Admitted (1st degree), 26th of January, 1779 ; raised 
(2nd degree), 29th of February, 1779; raised (3d de- 
gree), 27th of September, 1779 ; raised (4th degree 
or R. A. M.), 27th of October,- 1779 ; Knight Tem- 
plar (5th degree), 29th of November, 1779." 

This is believed to be the earliest official document 
in Great Britain and Ireland, showing the connection of 
Knights Templars with Freemasonry. The earliest 
working of the Royal Arch degree in York was, until 
recently, supposed to be an entry, relating to a Most 
Sublime Chapter's having been opened, 8th of Febru- 
ary, 1778, although, there is mention of that degree in 
the treasurer's book, a few years earlier. In 1880, how- 
ever, an old minute book of the Royal Arch degree 
was discovered, commencing February 7, 1762, thus 
showing the actual working of Royal Arch Masonry, 
sixteen years earlier, by the members of the Grand 
Lodge of York. In the book of miscellaneous records 
and documents, will be found part of a minute book of 
the < ' Honorable Order of Knights Templars assembled 
in the Grand Lodge room of York, Sir Francis Smyth, 
Grand Master." The first entry, under date of the 



MASONIC TEMPLARS. 55 

18th of February, 1780, is (according to Bro. Hug- 
han), the earliest record of Masonic Templars in 
England. 

Just at this point, we quote once more from 
Sir. S. W. Young, as to the connection between 
the Order of the Templars, and the institution of Ma- 
sonry. "But in our own Anglo-Saxon race, always 
religious, and altogether Christian, the need was felt 
of a closer and tenderer bond of union, based on their 
common faith of a Christian Freemasonry, which 
should lift men to a higher level, and be touched by a 
finer spirit. The old connection, liistorically certain^ 
between the Templar Orders of the Crusades, and the 
operative Lodges of Freemasons, supplied the long 
felt want, and the chivalric orders of Christian Free- 
masonry sprang into light. The Level and Square 
were combined into the Cross, and ' the poor soldiers 
of Jesus' renewed their old warfare against the enemies 
of the Lord, only with the chivalry and weapons of the 
eighteenth, instead of those of the twelfth century." 
From Dr. J. D. Bell, P. G. D. D. P. G. M. G. Sup. of 
North and East Yorkshire, who made an address at 
York upon the same occasion, we obtain the following 
valuable information regarding the early history • of 
the '* Yorke rite." He said: "That whenever, as a 
Mason, he visited the good old city of York, he always 
felt as though he were treading upon sacred 
ground, probably, from a consciousness of the im- 
portant part which this city played, at a very 
early period, after the arrival of the Romans, 



56 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

and np to the present century. He regretted to find 
that, within the last few years, it had been the fashion, 
with a certain class of Masonic students, to ignore all 
traditional, or legendary, accounts of, either, events or 
circumstances, relating to the early history of the 
Craft, and to treat such accounts as myths ; forgetting 
the marked distinction which obtains between defini- 
tions. For his own part, until evidence to the con- 
trary was adduced, he was of opinion that Grand 
Lodges had been held in York, and only^ in that city^ 
from the year 926, until the reign of Queen Elizabeth. 
These meetings of the Craft were dignified by the title 
of ' Assemblies,' which were, to all intents and pur- 
poses, Grand Lodges, and there is every reason to 
believe that they were held in York, long antecedent 
to their being held in London, and previous to the 
year 1567, he was not aware of any Grand Lodge 
or 'Assemblies,' having taken place in that city, 
although, no doubt, Lodges were held in London, and 
different parts of the kingdom, but the * General 
Assembly,' was held in York, where all the records 
were kept, and Preston (who the writer supposes, from 
the context, must have been some high English Ma- 
sonic authority, as well as antiquarian), informs us 
that, to this Assembly appeals, were made on every 
important occasion. The disposition to treat tradi- 
tions and legends simply as myths had led, and would 
lead, its advocates into difficulties. If they had thought- 
fully considered how much the history of the Craft 
differed from, perhaps, thai of any other institution. 



RECEPTION AT YORK. 57 

they need no longer wonder that they had so few doc- 
uments, or other direct evidence of long by-gone trans- 
actions, the transmissio7i of which, every ' Entered Ap- 
prentice,' who had bowed the knee before the Masonic 
altar knew from his own individual experience^ was, 
almost solely, by oral communication. Nevertheless, 
now and then, tangible and undoubted records unexpect- 
edly presented themselves . ' ' 

With these valuable extracts, which throw much addi- 
tional light upon our previous knowledge of Freema- 
sonry, we bring our remarks upon this topic to a close, 
for the present at least, and we desire to acknowledge 
most heartily, our obligations to our trans-Atlantic 
brethren and, especially to the Rev. and Sir S. 
W. Young, for their luminous and interesting ad- 
ditions to Masonic history, which we have made 
use of so liberally in this connection. We now pass 
to some account of the Masonic exemplification given 
in York, on July, the 24th, and of the elegant recep- 
tion at the Lord Mayor's residence, and the sumptuous 
banquet in the evening. This city, because of its an- 
cient prominence in English history, enjoys the distinc- 
tion of being one of the three cities of Great Britain 
and Ireland, which have a Lord Mayor, a Mansion 
House (as the residence of the Lord Mayor is called), 
and a Guild Hall, where all the banquets, etc., which 
are given in an official capacity are held, the other two 
cities being London, and Dublin. 

Some of our party visited one of the York lodges 
to see the third degree conferred upon a candidate, 



58 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

but as there were some other things of interest about 
the city which I was particularly desirous of seeing, I 
did not see any of the " Blue Lodge " work, but I was 
present at the conferring of the " Order of the Tem- 
ple " by the ancient Ebor Preceptory of York, and was 
highly edified by their ceremonies, and thought the 
exemplication more solemn and impressive, if that 
were possible, than the work done by the Command- 
eries of America, which I have seen exemplified in four 
different States. That evening, by 8 p. m., we re- 
paired to the Mansion House, where we were presented 
to and received by the Lord Mayor, who had very 
recently been made a Master Mason, and were intro- 
duced to various prominent English Masons, viewed 
the handsome paintings which adorned the walls of the 
Lord Mayor's residence, and had a good time gener- 
ally, for probably an hour, when we were invited to 
the banquet hall, which had been handsomely deco- 
rated in honor of the occasion. The writer had the 
good luck to be seated at the right hand of Brother J. 
S. Cumberland, P. M,, who was a royal good fellow, 
full of fun and anecdote, and he literally kept our end 
of the table in a roar. The edibles were served in 
faultless taste, and in the greatest profusion, and the 
finest brands of champagne were much more plentiful, 
and, also, much more in demand than Adam's ale. 

Brothers T. B. Whytehead and J. S. Cumberland took 
a prominent part in the exercises of the evening, not 
only on that occasion, but upon one, perhaps, equally 
memorable, about six years ago (July 25th, 1878), 



RECEPTION AT YORK. 59 

when Mary Commandery No. 36, K. T., of Philadel- 
phia, made a tour of Europe, and who, like ourselves, 
were also entertained by the kindly brethren of York, 
and to show their appreciation of these true English 
Masons, they were both made honorary members of 
the Mary Commandery, and were also presented with 
beautiful Templar jewels by that Commandery. That 
Commandery also presented the ancient Ebor Precept- 
ory. No. 101, of York, with a beautiful white watered- 
silk Knight Templar banner, decorated with the Templar 
emblems, and gotten up in the most sumptuous style 
as to the tout ensemble. York Lodge No. 236, has 
what is called the Masonic Silver Loving Cup, which is 
a large tankard having a capacity of several gallons of 
"nectar and ambrosia," and, on this occasion, after 
having been filled to the brim with some delightful con- 
coction, known only, perhaps, to the " universal Brit- 
ish nation," when toasts "to the Queen of England, 
the Patroness of the Order," whose son and heir appa- 
rent, the Prince of Wales, is, by the way, the present 
Grand Master of England, and "to the President of 
the United States," were drunk standing; this large 
bowl was started from the head of our table, each 
brother drinking directly from the tankard, by the 
help of another brother (as one person could not han- 
dle it at all), then he would pass it across the table to 
the brother opposite, then he would pass it back, and 
so on until each and every brother had " partici- 
pated." I had heard a great deal about the " wine 
and Wassail" of Merry England, but this was my 



60 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

first experience of it, and truly it was a pleasant sight, 
and I felt that it was good to be there. 

In addition to the toasts mentioned above, there was 
a third " To the Grand Masters of the Order in En- 
gland, and the United States," by the V. E. Provincial 
Prior T. E. W. Tew, and in the printed programme 
for the evening, the names of our speakers, who were 
to respond to these toasts, were not given, and, although 
they were responded to most happily by various dis- 
tinguished members of our party, we can, much to our 
regret, now only state that, to the toast " To the Presi- 
dent of the United States," the response was most 
feelingly and appropriately made by the Hon. Philetus 
Sawyer, a member of that august body, the United 
States Senate, whose Ex-President, the Hon. Chester 
A. Arthur, had been raised to the exalted office of the 
Presidency by the death, at the hands of the assassin, 
of the lamented James A. Garfield, who was himself 
one of the " bright and shining lights " of the Order 
of the Temple. Next in order came the toast " To 
our American visitors," by E. Fra. Whytehead, P. E. 
P. P. G. Capt. Guards, and the response by E. Fra. 
Norman T. Gassette, E. C. Apollo Commandery. 
Then a toast " To the members of the Order in York- 
shire," by Rev. Fra. George C. Larimer, D. D., and 
the response by E. Fra. Cumberland, P. E. P. G. 
Aide de Camp. Next came the toast " To the Lord- 
Mayor of York," proposed by E. Fra. C. H. Benton, 
Grand Master, etc. (who by the way held several 
high Masonic offices, and from which fact he was 



A GRAND BANQUET. 61 

dubbed " the concentrated Mason "), and the response 
was made by the Lord Mayor in person. Last came the 
toast " To the City of Chicago," proposed by E. Fra. 
M. Millington, E. P. Ancient Ebor Preceptory, re- 
sponded to by E. Fra. W. A. Stevens, P. E. P. Apollo 
Commandery. 

Everything went off in the happiest manner, 
and the festivities were prolonged to a late hour, 
and during the evening Bro. Cumberland, who 
was quite noted as a vocalist, rendered several fine 
solos. I asked him if he knew the Prince of Wales, 
and he said, *' Oh, yes, quite well, and he is a jolly 
good fellow," and that " he often came down to York- 
shire on hunting excursions." In fact, the Prince and 
Princess were in York, only the week before our visit, 
in attendance upon " the Grand Agricultural Show," 
and we saw over the various gates of the old walled 
city, many evidences of the numerous decorations 
which had been put up in honor of their presence. 
You must bear in mind that in England, when they 
speak of going to London, they always say "up to 
London " no matter in what part of the kingdom they 
happen to live, so they say " down to York," " down 
to Scotland," though these places are both north of 
London. The grand banquet closed with the toast, 
"To all Knights Templars wheresoever scattered 
o'er land or water," and was drunk standing and, in 
silence, and then, like the Arabs of the desert, "we 
folded our tents, and, silently, stole away," our hearts 
full of regret at parting with our kind English friends, 



62 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

between whom and us, the broad Atlantic would soon 
leave a barrier, never again to be passed over, or, at 
least, by very few of us assembled on that memorable, 
and unusual occasion. 



CHAPTER III. 



YOKE TO LONDON. 

fHE next morning, about ten a. m., we left York 
by special train for London, all aglow with anx- 
iety to see its wonderful Tower, and sublime West- 
minster Abbey, the two spots which, in all the world, 
are to my mind, fullest of historic interest and 
with which the story of England's greatness, as well 
as ofttime wickedness and tyranny, is indissolubly 
blended, to say nothing of its countless attractions of 
lesser interest. On our way up to London we passed 
through a beautiful country, which seemed, at times, 
a veritable paradise, saw the two great cathedrals of 
Lincoln and Ely, each of which has a Bishop, passed 
through Peterborough, where Mary, Queen of Scots, 
was buried, after she was beheaded at Fotheringay 
Castle in 1587, and whence her remains were after- 
wards removed to Westminster Abbey, and made a 
stop of an hour or so at Cambridge, in order that we 



CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY. 63 

might have a passing glance at one of the great Uni- 
versities of England, where many of the greatest of 
earth have prepared themselves for their subsequent 
high estate, by the most thorough mental culture. 

At the outset, it may be well to state, that the exact 
time when Cambridge became a seat of learning, is veiled 
in obscurity, and it is said that it was known as such, 
long prior to the twelfth century, but there are records 
in existence, showing it to date, at least, to that time. 
The colleges are seventeen in number, and, unlike our 
American institutions of learning ( where the students 
are all under one common authority, and are thrown 
together as one common body), each college regulates 
its own affairs, and is a separate corporation, governed 
by its own master, or head, but, of course, all are sub- 
ject to the Chancellor, who is the nominal head of all, 
but he does not reside at Cambridge, of necessity, at 
all, and his powers are really exercised by the Vice- 
Chancellor, who is chosen from among the seventeen 
masters of the various colleges, who is, for a year, the 
actual governor of this grand old institution of learning. 

The present Chancellor is his Grace, the Duke of Dev- 
onshire, whose town house I afterwards saw in London, 
and who was by the way, the father of Lord Cavendish, 
the Under Secretary for Ireland, of Earl Spencer, Lord 
Lieutenant, who was so brutally murdered in the 
Phcenix Park, Dublin, in the spring of 1882. Each 
student when he arrives at Cambridge, if he has not 
really made up his mind before coming up to the univer- 
sity, picks out his college, say for example, either Trin- 



64 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

]ly, or Kings', or whatever his choice maybe, and that 
college is then his home, during his entire university 
career, 

He lives there, boards there, recites there, and so 
far as his studies, his examinations, and his every-day 
life are concerned, he has no connection except, per- 
haps, socially, with any other of the colleges of the 
University. The library of this ancient seat of learn- 
ing contains more than 400,000 printed books, and 
about 3,000 MSS. of almost every age and language. 
At the time of our brief visit to Cambridge, much to 
my regret, it was during the long vacation, and we 
saw hardly any signs of life about the colleges, or the 
city, either, for that matter, as like all other " 'varsity 
towns," either in Europe or America, when the stu- 
dents are away, there is no life apparently about, any 
where. The students of the various colleg-es have a 
distinctive dress, consisting of a cap and gown, by 
which, at a glance, experts can tell to which college a 
man belongs. . When there, I remember of seeing but 
a single student, slowly sauntering through the street, 
with his mortar-board cap' and black gown, but of 
course, I could only conjecture as to which college he 
might happen to belong. The two most famous of 
the whole number are Trinity, and Kings' College, and 
it has been said of the former, that " it is the noblest 
collegiate foundation in the kingdom, whether we re- 
gard the number of its members, the extent of its 
buildings, or the illustrious men who have been edu- 
cated within its walls. Christ College, the largest 



TRINITY COLLEGE. 65 

college in Oxford, falls considerably short of it." 
The old court of this college is said to be the most 
spacious quadrangle in the world, its four sides being 
entirely surrounded by buildings. It contains an area 
of almost two acres. 

We were very much hurried in our visit to this glori- 
ous old University, but, nevertheless, I managed to see 
the interior of the chapel of Trinity, which was erected 
during the regime of Queen Mary, and Queen Eliza- 
beth, and is a fine specimen of what is known as the 
Tudor-Gothic style of architecture. In a room, to the 
left of the main entrance, I noticed a large number of 
gowns hanging on the walls, and I was told that the 
students wore these, while attending religious exercises 
in the chapel. 

There are more than six thousand persons connected 
with this University, during the greater portion of the 
year, a circumstance which makes Yale and Harvard, 
with only 700, or 800 students, each, seem very small 
affairs in comparison. There is, in the court of Trinity, 
a handsome fountain, which is supplied with water 
from a reservoir, several miles away. There are sev- 
eral very fine pieces of statuary at the entrance to the 
chapel, but the two which most interested me, were the 
statues of Lord Macaulay, the famous Whig historian, 
and of Sir Isaac Newton, two of the foremost of her 
many distinguished graduates, the latter said to be one 
of the finest statues in England, the inscription on 
which is as follows: ^^ Qui genus humanum ingenio 
superavif.'' 

5 



66 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

I would be glad *to give a worthier sketch of this 
great university, but I have neither the space, nor the 
materials at hand, for such a purpose, so we will hasten 
on to the great metropolis, which is, now, only sixty 
miles away; but before doing so, we will spend a few 
minutes in suggesting the names of only a few of the 
many illustrious warriors, statesmen, poets, judges, 
divines, men of letters and, in fact, men famous in 
every walk of life, who have, at one time, or another, 
been students at this grand old institution. Pre-emi- 
nent in the list, because of their prominence in 
the Christian world, come the names of the " Three 
Blessed Martyrs ' ' to the impious wrath of Bloody Mary, 
who were burned at the stake in front of Baliol Col- 
lege, Oxford; Archbishop Cranmer, Nicholas Ridley, 
Bishop of London, and Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Wor- 
cester, the two latter suffering together in 1555, and 
Archbishop Cranmer in 1556. 

Next we may mention Thomas Gray, the author of 
the "Elegy in a Country Churchyard;" Lord Chief 
Justice EUenborough ; Spencer, author of the " Faerie 
Queen ; " William Pitt, the great Prime Minister ; the 
learned Erasmus of Rotterdam, the great ally and 
coadjutor of Martin Luther in the Reformation ; 
Fletcher and Marlowe, the Dramatists; Sir Francis 
Walsingham, Secretary to Queen Elizabeth ; Sir Robert 
Walpole ; Lord Howard of Effingham, the commander 
of the English forces, at the time of the formidable 
Spanish Armada in 1588, the famous Lord Chesterfield, 



EMINENT GRADUATES. 67 

and latterly, the late X/ord Lyttoii, who was novelist, 
poet, statesman, and dramatist, all combined. 

This noted list may still, be further extended by 
adding the names of Tillotson, Archbishop of Can- 
terbury, Bishop Jeremy Taylor, Dr. Isaac Barrow, 
Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the blood, 
Oliver Cromwell, the regicide, Milton, Lawrence, 
Sterne, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Dryden, Byron, Ten- 
nyson, Lord Bacon, the author of the inductive system 
of philosophy, " Eare Ben Jonson," and hosts of 
lesser lights might be added to the list, but these wnll 
suflSce to give the reader some idea of what this En- 
glish University has done towards furnishing the world 
with intellectual giants. We left this grand old uni- 
versity town, hallowed by its many reminiscences and 
associations with much that is great, and much that is 
mean and ignoble, with some regret, in spite of what 
lay before us, as yet, totally unexplored and unknown, 
in the great metropolis, and as our train sped onward 
towards London, I could scarcely realize that I was 
upon the point of entering the largest, and, to me, de- 
cidedly, if not to most Americans, perhaps, the most 
interesting of all the world's capitals. At last, we 
reached its suburbs, and, after traveling for miles and 
miles, it seemed to me, our train ran into the Euston 
Eoad Station, in the fashionable West End of London, 
adjoining which, is the magnificent Midland Grand 
Hotel, which was to be the abode of most of the party, 
during our stay in the great city. 

Our apartments had been assigned us, previous to 



68 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

our arrival, and I found myself nicely located in a 
comfortable room on the first floor of the hotel, which 
commanded a fine view of the Euston Koad, and the 
immense traffic of vehicles, omnibuses, Hansom cabs, 
etc., of which there are more than 25,000 of all kinds 
licensed and running through the London streets ; but I 
did not remain there very long, for my time was too 
short to lose a moment of it, if it could be possibly uti- 
lized in sight seeing. As soon as I had refreshed my- 
self, by getting some of the dust of travel from me, I at 
once mounted a London 'bus, from the top of which, by 
the way, is the best place to be found to see the sights in 
London streets, and started for Hyde Park, and Kotten 
Kow, in the extreme West End, which was several 
miles further west than the Midland Grand Hotel, as I 
was anxious to see that famous resort of fashion, beauty 
and intellect, although it was rather late in the season, 
it being then about the last week in July. I had 
hardly seated myself on top of the 'bus, before I found 
out that my next neighbor was a young man from 
Boston, and I felt at home right away. 

It was a ride of several miles, and something like an 
hour's time from the Midland Grand to Hyde Park, and 
as we rode along, I thought to myself, that I had never 
seen anything like such a turmoil and confusion in Broad- 
way, New York, which, until then, Ihad been in the habit 
of considering a pretty lively thoroughfare, and which, 
during a residence of several years in the East, I had 
often traversed. Although it was rather late for " so- 
ciety people to be in town," yet the streets were 



IN LONDON. 69 

crowded, all the same, with all manner of vehicles 
known to the civilized world, and the pavements 
thronged with thousands of well dressed and joyous 
looking pedestrians, for it was a lovely July afternoon, 
and the scene was one not easily forgotten. To parody 
Tennyson's Brook, "Society may come, and society 
may go, but we (the people) go on forever," 

We passed through Regent Street, the leading thor- 
oughfare of London, with its hundreds of magnificent 
stores, the handsomest in the world, through Oxford 
Street, which is almost equal in attractions, and in 
splendor, to its more aristocratic neighbor, on through 
Pall Mall, or " Pell Mell," as the Londoners call it, 
then on down Piccadilly, past the town house of the 
Duke of Wellington, with its iron shutters, which 
barely protected the great man's life from the mob, at 
one period of his history, when Waterloo was well nigh 
forgotten, by reason of his oppression of the people, 
then, on, past the residence of the Duke of Devonshiie, 
then, past, the residence of the noted Baroness Burdett- 
Coutts, who relinquished such a large portion of her 
income in order to marry the young American Bart- 
lett, then past the monstrosity known as the Eques- 
trian Statue of the Duke of Wellington, which 
eyesore to the aesthetic has since been removed, 
and, at last, and before we hardly know it, 
so much has our pilgrimage interested us, we dismount 
from the 'bus, and find ourselves at the grand entrance 
to Hyde Park. My American friend did not ride very 
far with me, however, and after he had left me, I com- 



70 A KNIGHT TExAIPLAR ABROAD. 

menced a little social chat with a very gentlemanly 
looking person who sat near me, and who, soon dis- 
covering that I was an American, and like the balance 
of the universal Yankee nation, " wanted to know, you 
know," and, in fact, had come expressly for that very 
purpose, became very communicative, and gave me a 
good many points, and items of interest. I will here 
state that, in connection with this kindly English gen- 
tleman, I met with a most singular coincidence. A few 
weeks later, upon my return from the Continent, 
whither I went, a few days, after, from London, I 
again took my old perch on a city 'bus, on my way to 
Hyde Park, for a farewell look at the remnants of 
beauty and fashion, when lo, and behold, whom should 
I meet but the self-same individual, with whoifi I had 
conversed, under exactly the same circumstances, only 
a short time before. I can but regard this as a most 
marvelous coincidence, when you remember that Lon- 
don has nearly 5,000,000 inhabitants, and, as I said 
before, runs more than 25,000 public vehicles for the 
transportation of passengers, to say nothing of the 
countless thousands of "turnouts," owned by the 
nobility, and the rich gentry, of the city of London. 

I entered the park at the well known Hyde Park 
corner, where the east end of Rotten Row begins, and 
found a great many carriages on the drive, and quite a 
number of riders in the Row, although I suppose the dis- 
play was, no doubt, very tame compared with what 
might have been seen a few weeks earlier. When I 
returned from the Continent, a few weeks afterwards. 



HYDE PARK. 71 

and revisited the park, I could hardly find a corporal's 
guard of riders, or drivers, anywhere. So mighty a 
mistress is Fashion, that " every body, who is any 
body," needs must obey her every behest, no matter 
how imperious, or unreasonable. I heard that the Prin- 
cess of Wales was driving in the park, and I waited, 
with some impatience, in hopes of seeing her, and, 
finally, I was rewarded, for after a while she came rid- 
ing by in a royal equipage, accompanied by her three 
lovely young daughters, and by a gentleman, who was 
not the Prince, however, as I was informed. Ordina- 
rily, when any of the Eoyal Family ride in the park, the 
equipage is preceded by two mounted policemen, who 
clear the way, but at the end of the season, when the 
park is not much thronged, this precaution is not ob- 
served, and I would not, perhaps, have known that Roy- 
alty was approaching, had I not seen so many gentlemen 
with their heads uncovered, as the Royal Family 
approached, and as I thought I could afford " to do, as 
Rome did," I took off my hat to the Princess, too. I, 
also, saw the great Prime Minister of England, the 
Right Honorable W. E. Gladstone, and his wife, and a 
few other notabilities, but those above mentioned, were 
the most prominent. 

I noticed that all the horses in Rotten Row, which is 
exclusively used by the equestrians, had their tails cut 
very short, and thus the lower animals, as well as man, 
often su-ffer from the cruel edicts of fashion. This 
park covers an area of about 400 acres, and in the 
height of a London season, is one of the most fre- 



72 A KNIGHT TEMPLAE ABROAD 

quented, and liveliest scenes to be found in London. 
There is a fine sheet of water in the park, called the 
Serpentine, which is a great resort for skaters in the 
winter season, and, on its banks, are to be found a corps 
of life-savers, with all their apparatus, to be used in 
case of emergency. Here, also, is to be seen a colos- 
sal statue, which is called the Statue of Achilles, which 
was erected 7 years after "Waterloo, by money sub- 
scribed by English ladies, in honor of "Arthur, Duke 
of Wellington, and his brave companions in arms." 
The statue is bronze, and is made from cannon, taken 
from the French in France, and Spain, and at Water- 
loo. The name " Eotten Kow," although it sounds 
rather unsavory, to be so extremely a fashionable place 
of resort, by the high and mighty, is said to be derived 
from the phrase. Route de lioi, or the '* King's High- 
way," which has probably been corrupted into its 
present version of Rotten Row, in modern times. 
The favorite hour for equestrians in the Row is from 
12 to 2, but they may be often seen there from 5 to 7, 
which is the hour for fashionables to drive through the 
park, so, I staid there too late to get back to the hotel 
in time to dine, and get ready to attend some one of 
the numerous theaters of London. In fact, our party 
had already dined, and scattered out in various direc- 
tions, before I returned, so I concluded I would saunter 
around to Baker Street, and see the world-famous 
museum of Madam Tussaud, in comparison with whose 
interesting display, *' Mrs. Jarley's Waxworks " or, in 
fact, any body's else, ^ are, indeed, not to be mentioned 



LONDON MUSEUM. 73 

in the same breath. This collection is no cheap, 
catch-penny affair, but is, in truth, one of the sights 
of London, which no stranger in that city should fail 
to see, if possible, as the figures are dressed with strict 
regard to chronological accuracy, and no pains, or 
expense, have been spared to make them look as much 
like their originals, in appearance, and in dress, as the 
highest artistic skill and taste, and an unlimited outlay 
of money will admit of 

It is much more expensive to visit this collec- 
tion, than most of the " alleged " museums of 
Europe, and this country, but when you get in 
there, you find out that it is no " Barnum humbug, 
and swindle," but you get more than your money's 
worth. The general admission is one shilling, a cata- 
logue, which is necessary to properly understand the 
collection, will cost a six-pence more, and then an 
additional six-pence admits you to the Chamber of 
Horrors, so that, for two shillings, or fifty cents of 
our money, you can see, throughout, this unsurpassed 
exhibition of historic characters, which is unlike any 
other collection of the kind in the world, as it is, in 
fact, the oldest, having been opened in the Palais 
Eoyal, Paris, in 1772, and in London, in 1802. To 
show that Royalty itself has not disdained to visit this 
place of amusement, the sons of Madam Tussaud, who 
inherited the collection, name among their patrons, on 
the backs of their ofiicial catalogues, *' The Royal 
Family," '« Louis XVI,." " Marie Antoinette," etc. 

The collection consists, at present, of more than 



74 A KNIGHT TEMPLAE ABEOAD. 

three hundred life-size figures, arranged in appropri- 
ate classes, in quite a number of rooms, and which is 
being constantly added to, as persons become famous, 
or die, either of famous, or infamous antecedents. 
Thus, among the recent accessions, are to be seen the 
wretch Guiteau, who assassinated President Garfield, 
and Capt. Webb, the noted swimmer, who threw away 
his life so recklessly in 1883, in his foolhardy at- 
tempt to " shoot " the Whirlpool Rapids, below Niagara 
Falls. The first distinguished person who greets you 
upon entering, after your cane, or umbrella, as the 
case may be, has been taken from you, to prevent 
you, either, in your verdancy, or enthusiasm, or pos- 
sibly, both combined, from pointing at, or injuring 
any of the figures, is Charles Dickens, whose name is 
as familiar as his own " Household Words," wherever 
the English tongue is spoken or read. He is, by the 
way, the only author of world-wide celebrity, whom the 
writer has seen in the flesh, he having heard him, not 
long before his death, in 1870, recite his famous Christ- 
mas Carol, and the ludicrously-pathetic speech of Ser- 
geant Buzfuzz to the jury, in the celebrated action for 
damages, for breach of promise brought by one Mrs. 
Bardell, against our benevolent old friend, Mr. Pick- 
wick. 

The writer, also, met him face to face, on Chapel 
Street, in New Haven, on the next morning after 
his reading, which was given on his last visit to 
America, in March, 1869. Next, you see the pres- 
ent King Humbert, of Italy, and his father, Victor 



"HALL OF KINGS." 75 

Emmanuer, and, near them, the Patriot, Garibaldi. 
The most celebrated group, however, in the museum, 
is in the room designated as the " Hall of Kings," 
and contains all the Sovereigns of England, from 
William, the Conqueror, in the eleventh century, to 
the reigning Queen Victoria, and the members of the 
Royal Family, and the sight is truly wonderful. At 
night, which is the best time to see the display, the 
scene is perfectly dazzling, and one which can hardly 
be excelled. I was especially interested in "good 
Queen Bess," and " Bloody Mary," dressed in their 
magnificent robes of state, all chronologically accurate, 
in Charles I., and his executioner, Oliver Crom- 
well, in the beautiful and unfortunate, Mary, Queen of 
Scots, who had around her neck, the very rosary she 
wore upon the scaffold, where she met her untimely 
end, in Edward, the Black Prince, and Richard, of 
the Lion's Heart, and in Louis XVI., and, his beautiful 
Queen, Marie Antoinette, whom the bloody sans 
cwZo^^es remorselessly butchered under the sharp edge of 
the guillotine, but most of all, in William HI., the 
Prince of Orange, who ascended the throne at the 
Revolution of 1688 (the bloody and cowardly Papist 
King, James II. having fled, ignominiously, to France), 
and who bore upon his banner, when he landed on 
English soil, the motto of his house, " I will main- 
tain," and, added to it, the glorious sentence, which 
endeared him to every English heart, " the Liberties 
of England, and the Protestant religion." 

All these historic personages, and many more, of 



76 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

which I have not the space, or the time to speaks, were 
dressed, as nearly as possible, in the costume of their 
time, the males clad in armor, just as they wore it when 
in life; and many of these, as well as others, wore the 
exact coats of mail, and handled the weapons of the 
period in which they lived, and the Eoyal Family 
especially, wore costumes which had actually been a 
portion of their wardrobes, and which had been pur- 
chased at great expense, from the Court Chamberlain. 
Among others, I might mention some of the leading 
statesmen of Europe who are to be seen there. Lord 
Beaconsfield, Prince Bismarck, Hon. John Bright, 
Gambetta, the great orator and statesman, the idol of 
the French people, and scores of others of lesser note 
in the political world. I must not omit to mention 
the Dauphin of France, and the Princess Elizabeth, 
afterwards, the Duchess d' Angouleme, whose fate is 
indirectly connected, by a romantic chain, with the 
Knights Templars of France, as the Eoyal Family were, 
for several years, during the French Eevolution, pris- 
oners in the Temple, in Paris, which was, in the thir- 
teenth century, a stronghold of the Order in France. 

It is said that Madam Tussaud knew the Eoyal Family 
very intimately, and, at one time, gave the Princess 
Elizabeth, the sister of King Louis, XVI., lessons in 
the art of modeling in wax, and that she resided at the 
Tuileries, and Versailles, with them, until the Eevolu- 
tion of 1789, when she sought safety in flight to Lon- 
don, and there located her famous collection, where it 
has remained ever since. She is to be seen among the 



*'THB SLEEPING BEAUTY." 77 

collection. America has a few representatives on ex- 
hibition, but these seem to be about the poorest among 
the lot, in appearance, and in likeness. They have 
Lincoln, Johnson, Garfield, and Grant; but none of 
them look like the originals, as far as I could judge 
from the pictures I had seen of them, as Grant is the 
only one of them whom I had ever seen in person, and 
his counterfeit presentment was far from being accurate. 

We must not omit to mention the beautiful reclining 
figure, called the " Sleeping Beauty," whose bosom 
rises and falls with the same unceasing regularity, as 
though she lived, and moved, and had her being, like 
the rest of mankind. This is done, of course, by clev- 
erly arranged machinery. 

A little old woman, said to be Madam Tussaud, is 
seen sitting, and looking at the Sleeping Beauty, and 
she looks so natural that, occasionally, people are seen 
to speak to her, and their neighbors, who have, per- 
haps, made the same blunder, enjoy their discomfiture 
all the more. I remember that, once or twice, I came 
very near asking some questions of a wax figure, repre- 
senting a London policeman in full dress, but discov- 
ered my error just in time. Another wonderful 
deception, is that of an old man holding a programme 
in his hand, and he is seen, occasionally, to look up 
from the paper, and, apparently, view the group before 
him, with as much interest as anybody. Persons are 
often deceived into speaking to him, when, of course, 
they find, to their surprise, that he is only a clever au- 
tomaton, and that they are richly sold. 



78 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

I pass now to what was, to me, and, doubtless, to 
many other visitors, the part of the exhibition which 
was of the most surpassing interest by far — the Na- 
poleon rooms, which contained many relics of the won- 
derful man whom, from my earliest youth, I had 
learned to look upon, almost as a demi-god, in spite of 
the horrible calumnies circulated against him by his 
enemies, and of whom Phillips so brilliantly remarked 
that, *' he was wrapt in the solitude of his own original- 
ity, and was the most extraordinary character, perhaps, 
that in the annals of this world, ever rose, or reigned, 
or fell, the man without a model, and without a 
shadow!" These relics of the First Consul are un- 
questionably genuine, and well authenticated, and to 
procure them, involved a vast expenditure of money, 
but the heirs of Madam Tussaud, like our own une- 
qualed Barnum, spare neither pains, nor expense, to 
obtain anything in their line, which is likely to 
"draw." 

The first thing of interest which your eager eyes 
fall upon, on entering the room, is the celebrated 
traveling-carriage of Napoleon, in which he made 
his disastrous Eussian campaign, and which was 
captured by the Prussians, on the fatal day of Waterloo, 
some fifteen miles from the field of battle, and for 
which the Prince Regent, afterwards George TV., 
received $12,000. Only a few months before our 
party started on their tour of Europe, the writer met a 
gentleman, who had seen this carriage, and suggested 
the best way of securing from it, a souvenir of the 



EELICS OF NAPOLEON. 79 

modern Caesar. He said that the cloth of the carriage 
seat was already much torn, and, therefore, while the 
writer would never have dreamed of committing an act 
of vandalism, in order to obtain the coveted relic, he 
thought he would watch his opportunity and secure a 
small piece of cloth from the famous traveling-carriage. 
In order to do this, he seated himself in the former 
seat of the great Emperor, and finding the cushion 
torn, just as he had been told it was, he dexterously 
removed a small piece of blue cloth ; but, alas ! for the 
fruition of all human hopes, the coveted relic, which 
was put carefully away in the writer's pocket-book, 
had mysteriously disappeared by the following morn- 
ing. 

In the same room, is to be seen the very camp 
bedstead, which the Emperor used during his seven 
years' incarceration at St. Helena, where he " ate out 
his proud heart," under the infamous, and brutal Sir 
Hudson Lowe, with the same mattresses and pillows 
on which he died, and, on the bed, lies a wax counter- 
feit of the great Napoleon himself, in his chasseur 
uniform, and covered with the cloak he wore at Ma- 
rengo. You may also see his favorite garden chair, a 
glass case, containing the counterpane used on his 
deathbed, and yet stained with his blood, a gold re- 
peating watch, a cameo ring, a tooth-brush, a diamond 
found in his carriage, when it was captured by the 
Prussians, and many other things of interest ; among 
them, a veritable tooth of the great Emperor, extracted 
by Dr. O'Meara, his surgeon, for several years, at St. 



80 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Helena, but who was compelled, by Sir Hudson Lowe's 
ungentlemanlj treatment, and unfounded suspicions, 
to surrender his confidential and highly-honorable 
position, much against his will. 

Literature owes to this man's pen a most interesting- 
account of "Napoleon in Exile," audit must always be a 
source of regret that Dr. O'Meara was not with the 
famous prisoner, during the closing scenes of his stormy 
and most eventful life. Many other relics might be 
mentioned, but we will close the list, by alluding to the 
celebrated atlas, used by the Emperor, and which con- 
tains the plans of several battles, drawn by his own 
hand. I left the room with deep regret, having lin- 
gered there, almost to the very hour of closing the 
exhibition, and hastened to the Chamber of Horrors, 
for which, however, I cared but little; in fact, the 
very atmosphere seemed oppressive to me, the room 
being filled with representatives of the greatest crimi- 
nals, and the most blood-thirsty villains of previous 
times, so I hastened out into the purer atmosphere, as 
soon as possible ; but I wish to mention one blood- 
stained relic, in that uncanny room, which was, to 
me, fraught with almost the same sad interest, as those 
of the dead Napoleon, which I had so lately gazed 
upon. This was nothing more, nor less, if the cata- 
logue can be trusted, than the original and self-same 
guillotine blade which decapitated the King, and 
Queen of France, Charlotte Corday, who killed the in- 
famous Marat, the soi-disant*' friend ( ?) of the people," 
who, just before his death, had coolly published the 



CHAMBER OF HORRORS. 81 

awful declaration, that 200,000 more heads must be 
lopped off in France, before the success of the Kevolu- 
tion could be assured, Madam Eoland, and hundreds 
of others of the best, as well as the meanest and most 
ignoble blood of France, from the gentle Martyr, 
King Louis, XYI., to the bloody monster Robespierre, 
the arch fiend, with whose fall, most justly " hoist 
by his own petard," the Revolution spent its fury, and 
the awful Reign of Terror ceased. 

The victims of this single blade, are said to have 
reached the awful number of 2,800. I placed my hand 
upon this cruel instrument of death, and, as I did so, 
my thoughts reverted to the awful scenes of the Revo- 
lution, and I thought of the tremendous part in the 
drama, which that piece of metal, now so insignificant 
looking, had played. This knife was bought of one 
Sanson, the grandson of the original executioner, and 
its genuineness is said to be beyond all question. 

The next morning, our party seated themselves in 
handsome wagonettes, drawn by four horses, and drove 
through the streets of the old city, to the Tower. It 
was an unusually bright day, for London, as the sun 
actually remained visible for an hour or two, and the 
drive was most enjoyable. It must have been some- 
thing like four or five miles, at least, from our hotel, in 
the West End, to the Tower, but there was so much to 
see on the way that was novel and interesting, that the 
time passed rapidly, and, almost, before we knew it, the 
turrets of the famous historic structure burst upon our 
sight — a prison-house which has more tojdo with Eng- 

6 



82 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABEOAD. 

land's history (which, glorious though it be, in the 
main, is yet darkened with many a bloody page), than 
any other within her realms, save the grand, and 
glorious, old Westminster Abbey. 

We caught a glimpse of the principal citadel of the 
structure, which is called the White Tower, when several 
blocks away from it, and, truly, it made my heart 
thrill, and my pulse rebound more quickly than was 
its wont, when I found my self approaching the world- 
famous Tower, which has, at different periods in its 
history, figured as a royal residence, a prison, and a 
fortress, and which has, more than once, valiantly 
withstood the plots of traitors within, and foes without 
its walls. Before visiting the place, I had read, more 
than once, Aiusworth's historical romance, concerning 
the Tower, and, as almost every reader naturally will, 
had formed, from this description, some theory of the 
place, which, as is usually the case in such mat- 
ters, I found totally erroneous, and the structure 
itself, wholly unlike what I had fondly imagined 
it. The Tower, itself, is a strong fortress, with 
walls varying in thickness from ten to fourteen feet, 
and embraces no less than eleven different towers, 
within its enclosure, which are designated by the foi- 
ling names: The Bloody Tower, Bell Tower, Beau- 
champ Tower, Devereaux Tower, Flint Tower, Bowyer 
Tower, Brick Tower, Jewel Tower, Salt Tower, 
Record Tower and Broad Arrow Tower. The space 
which this large and irregular structure covers, is said 
to be thirteen acres, and the south wall is not many 



LONDON TOWER. 83 

feet distant from the banks of the Thames, which sep- 
arates the city of London in two parts, somewhat in 
the same way, as does the river Seine, the city of 
Paris. 

Almost the first thing of interest which you see, 
after you have purchased your ticket of admission, and 
gotten fairly within the walls, is the " Traitor's Gate," 
which is a massive affair, of rather clumsy architecture, 
(if you can apply such a term, to such a rude and prim- 
itive construction) and hangs upon tremendous hinges, 
through which, in by-gone ages, prisoners of State were 
brought into the Tower, having been brought thither 
by the river Thames, in order to avoid a rescue by the 
mob in the London streets ; and in those days, doubt- 
less, the river beat against the Tower wall, and served 
all the purposes of a moat, for defense. Now, how- 
ever, there is an embankment of several feet in width, 
between the water and the Traitor's Gate, and the em- 
bankment serves as a walk, to which, however, the 
public generally are prohibited access, but the writer 
walked along it, all the same, but he had to pass an 
English sentry, and give him an account of himself, be- 
fore he could pass through. The seven Bishops, in the 
reign of the fanatical James II., merely, because they 
would not order read, in the Episcopal churches, his 
Edict of Toleration for the Dissenters, and the Cath- 
olics, were brought through this gate, prisoners to the 
Tower, and rigorously confined here, until their triumph- 
ant vindication before the House of Lords, and count- 



84 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

less others of note, in England's history. Sir Philip 
Sydney, Sir Thomas More, Lord Eussell, Queen Anne 
Boleyn, the Princess Elizabeth, afterwards Queen, and 
the three, glorious martyrs, Cranmer, Eidley and Lat- 
imer, Jeffreys, of the Bloody Assizes, with his victim, 
the unfortunate and unhappy Monmouth, and scores of 
others — some grand and noble, some vile and infa- 
mous — have passed through this historic gate, with few 
exceptions, either to waste their lives in cheerless dun- 
geons, or to pass out again to death, on the Bloody 
Tower Hill. I could not refrain, while looking con- 
templatively upon this relic of mediaeval times, from 
thinking of the associations of misery, crime, and 
wretchedness, by which I was then surrounded, and of 
how many of England's foremost historic characters, 
had stepped from the greatest heights of human gran- 
deur and glory, to a most ignominious death on Tower 
Hill, amid the jeers of the heartless rabble, who were 
protected, like the sans culottes, in France, from the 
guillotine, during the Revolution, by their very obscur- 
ity and nothingness. The original foundation dates 
back to Caesar's time, when the present London was 
known, in the Latin tongue, by the name of Lundinum, 
and one of the towers, is called by the name of Caesar's 
Tower, to this day. The present buildings probably, 
date only from the time of William, the Conqueror, by 
whose command, the White Tower was built, and sev- 
eral important fortifications were added, during the 
time of William's two sons, William Eufus, and Hen- 
ry I. 



JEWEL TO WEE. 85 

Mr. Bailey, in his History of the Tower, mentions 
that, " it is affirmed that the tower was built about the 
time of Constantine, the Great," and we have, also, the 
statement, that it was the treasury, and mint of the 
Eomans. You see around you, curiously dressed per- 
sons called " warders," or " beefeaters," in slang par- 
lance, who act as guides, and lecturers, (for which 
service they expect, of course, remuneration) whose 
dress is said to be that of the time of Henry VHI., 
and who are, generally, veteran soldiers, who have dis- 
tinguished themselves, at various places, in the service 
of their country. I noticed several of them displaying 
decorations, which they seemed to wear with conscious 
pride. 

The first things, which visitors to the tower gen- 
erally see, are the crown jewels of England, which 
are kept in what is called the Jewel Tower, so named, 
because it is the repository of the crown Jewels. The 
royal crown is of rich purple velvet, surrounded by 
bands of solid gold, and has, on the top, a ball and cross 
of diamonds of immense size, and of the purest water. 
The crown of the Prince of Wales, is plain in its neat- 
ness, being of pure gold, and without any ornaments. 
But, by far the grandest of all is, of course, the Queen's 
diadem; which is, truly, a magnificent affair, and is 
studded with immense diamonds, and pearls. This is 
said to have been made for Mary of Modena, the consort 
of James H., who ran away from his own kingdom to 
France, and therby solved the problem, as to the acces- 
sion of the Prince of Orange, which might have been 



86 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

a knotty one, had not James, by his cowardice, unwit- 
tingly, aided in its solution. There is much other royal 
paraphernalia here, the gold rods, which are carried in 
procession, when Parliament is convened, and many 
other things of interest, which we will not stop longer 
to enumerate. 

You next visit the White Tower, which, con- 
tains a vast collection of arms, and armor, of which I 
will speak of more at length, further on. While 
ascending the steps, in order to enter the armory, our 
attention is directed to a placard, near the stairway, 
which announces that near this step were found the 
remains of the two, unfortunate, little princes, who were 
smothered to death (like Desdemona in the play ) , in the 
Tower, by the orders of their cruel and unnatural 
uncle, Eichard, the Hunchback, and their remains now 
rest in the Abbey, near the Great Queen, Elizabeth. 
The first thing you see in the White Tower, is a vast 
collection of fire-arms, of the most approved, modern 
patterns, perhaps, several hundred thousand of them, 
all stacked and arranged, with the most perfect method 
and uniformity, and bayonets, arranged in all manner 
of curious figures, by the ingenuity of a London lock- 
smith. Next, they conduct you to the horse armory, 
where you see many of the Sovereigns of England, all 
accoutred in complete armor, of the time in which they 
lived, and their horses, also, protected by the trappings, 
which were used, in those days of knight-errantry and 
chivalry, for their prancing battle-chargers. 

Among these, may be mentioned Edward I., Edward 



TOWER GREEN. 87 

lY., King Henry VIII., and King James II. There 
are, also, to be seen here very many curious implements 
of war, dating through a period of several centuries. 
Among the things of especial interest, which I remem- 
ber, were a number of weapons, consisting of long 
spears, and scythe blades fastened to long poles, used 
by the peasants, who had joined the army of "King 
Monmouth," when he made his futile attempt against 
the throne of his natural uncle. King James II., who 
sent him to the block, on Tower Hill, after his defeat 
at Sedgemoor, in 1585. Monmouth was a natural son 
of King Charles II. and Lucy Walters, but this did 
not weigh anything in his favor, in the eyes of King 
James. Another very notable figure is that of Queen 
Elizabeth, clad in her robes of state, and proceeding on 
horseback to St. Paul's, to return thanks to God, for 
the escape of England, from the dreaded Spanish Ar- 
mada, in 1588, which was destroyed by a tempest, upon 
the very eve of its descent on England. 

After leaving this Tower, we come next to a spot, which 
is, indeed, entitled to occupy a niche in history. This is 
known as Tower Green, and has St. Peter's Chapel, on 
one side, Beauchamp Tower, on the other, and, on still 
another, the White Tower, which we have just quitted. 
On this spot, we see an inscription, which tells us, that 
the uxorious Henry YIII. had his wife, the fair Queen 
Anne Boleyn, beheaded here, and yet, the very next 
day, with the blood of his innocent victim crying forth 
from the ground against him, he wedded the Lady 
Jane Seymour. Here, also, were put to death by his 



88 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABEOAD. 

order, Catherine Howard, and the Countess of Salis- 
bury, the latter, over seventy years of age ; and, here 
Queen Mary caused to be beheaded the Lady Jane 
Grey, whose husband. Lord Guilford Dudley, had 
already, preceded her to the block, and whose headless 
corpse was borne past her window, after an ignomin- 
ious death. 

There might be some palliation for the action 
of Bloody Mary, in the case of Lady Jane Grey, 
as she had dared to set herself up as a rival for the 
throne, but none, whatever, can be urged to justify the 
cruel Henry for his behavior toward his victims. There 
is but one more tower, accessible to visitors, and that 
is Beauchamp Tower, of which they let you see but 
one or two rooms, so that your visit to the Tower is 
rather unsatisfactory, after all. There are a number 
of quaint and curious carvings on the walls of these 
rooms, but few of them are of special interest to the 
casual visitor, unless the following, which I will pass- 
ingly allude to, should be so, because of its possible 
connection with the novel " Peveril of the Peak," by 
the " Wizard of the North." One portion of this 
rather elaborate inscription is a representation of the 
crucifixion, bearing the initials of its superscription, 
and a bleeding heart ; underneath is the word * ' Pev- 
erel." 

To the right of the cross, is part of a skeleton, with 
an illegible inscription; underneath, to the left, is a 
shield, bearing the arms of the family of Peverel. How 
truly does that bleeding heart appropriately typify the 



ST. petkr's chapel. 89 

sufferings of the unhappy wretch, who, perhaps, Im- 
gered there, for years, in hopeless misery? By giving 
an extra shilling to the warder, a young man from 
Boston, and the writer, were allowed to enter the sacred 
precincts of the little chapel of St. Peter's, which con- 
tains many dead, some as illustrious, and some as 
infamous, perhaps, as any who lie entombed, amid the 
splendors of Westminster. No one, I presume, will 
object to reading, in Macaulay's glowing prose, the 
names of some of the historic characters, who sleep in 
this little, and unassuming sepulchre, so I quote the 
passage, entire, from the incomparable history of En- 
gland, where he describes the closing scenes of Mon- 
mouth's Rebellion. 

Speaking of the death of Monmouth, he says: 
" Within four years, the pavement of that chancel 
was, again, disturbed, and, hard by the remains 
of Monmouth, were laid the remains of Jeffreys. 
In truth, there is no sadder spot on earth, than 
that little cemetery. Death is there associated, 
not, as in Westminster Abbey, and St. Paul's, with 
genius, and virtue, with public veneration, and with 
imperishable renown, not, as in our humblest churches 
and church -yards, with everything that is most endearing 
in social, and domestic charities, but, with whatever is 
darkest in human nature, and in human destiny ; with the 
savage triumph of implacable enemies, w^ith the incon- 
stancy, the ingratitude, the cowardice, of friends, with 
all the miseries of fallen greatness, and of blighted 



90 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

fame. Thither have been carried, through successive 
ages, by the rude hands of Jailors, without one mourner 
following, the bleeding relics of men, who had been the 
captains of armies, the leaders of parties, the oracles 
of senates, and the ornaments of courts. 

Thither, was borne, before the window where Jane was 
praying, the mangled corpse of Guilford Dudley. Ed- 
ward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, and Protector of the 
Eealm, reposes there, by the brother whom he murdered. 
There, has mouldered away the headless trunk of John 
Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and Cardinal of St.Vitalis, 
a man worthy to have lived in a better age, and to 
have died in a better cause. There, are laid John Dud- 
ley, Duke of Northumberland, Lord High Admiral, and 
Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, Lord High Treas- 
urer. There, too, was another Essex, on whom 
nature and fortune had lavished all their bounty in vain, 
and whom valor, grace, genius, royal favor, popular 
applause, conducted to an early, and an ignominious 
doom. Not far off, sleep two chiefs of the great house 
of Howard — Thomas, the fourth Duke of Norfolk, 
and Philip, the eleventh Earl of Arundel. Here, and 
there, among the thick graves of unquiet and aspiring 
statesmen, lie more delicate sufferers; Margaret of 
Salisbury, last of the proud name of Plantagenet, and 
those two fair queens, who perished by the jealous rage 
of Henry." 



LONDON CONTINUED. 



CHAPTER IV. 



91 



LONDON CONTINUED 

tHE next place of interest to which we wend our 
way, is the famous St. Paul's Cathedral, which 
is the most prominent building in London, and is situ- 
ated in that part, which is technically known, as *' the 
city ; " which is near the commercial center of London, 
and is a lasting monument to the genius of Sir Chris- 
topher Wren, that glorious architect, and grand old 
"Free and Accepted Mason." This church is re- 
markable in this, that, though it was thirty-five years 
in course of construction, having been begun in 1675, 
and finished in 1710, during the entire period, while it 
was being built, it was under the supervision of one 
architect. Sir Christopher Wren, one Master Mason, 
Thomas Strong, and one Bishop, Dr. Compton, It cost, 
almost, $4,000,000, and was built, mainly, by a tax 
on coals. Architects did not, it seems, command very 
high salaries in those days, for Sir Christopher Wren 
received only about $1,000 a year, for superintending its 
entire construction. 

It is the third largest ecclesiastical edifice in 
Europe, being surpassed only, by St. Peter's, at 
Rome, and the Cathedral, at Milan. It has the larg- 
est dome in the world, and this reaches to the height 



92 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

of 363 feet, and is of the enormous diameter of 180 
feet, and, to the top of the cross, which surmounts the 
entire structure, is 44 feet more, which makes the 
cathedral tower reach the extreme height of 404 feet, 
above the pavement. The church is built in the form of 
the Latin cross, and the nave (that is to say, the extreme 
length) is 500 feet, and the breadth 118 feet, while the 
transept (that is to say, the part which forms the cross 
piece, as it were) is just half the extreme length, 250 
feet, which gives the cathedral the most exquisite pro- 
portions. It may interest the Masonic fraternity to 
know, that the corner-stone of this noble structure, was 
laid with Masonic ceremonies, and the London Lodge, 
whose members officiated on that occasion, I am told, 
yet, preserve the Trowel and Mallet, which were used at 
the time, among their archives, and Masonic souvenirs. 
There are, probably, 50 or 60 fine monuments to be 
seen in St. Paul's, chiefly, of England's naval, and 
military heroes, many of them, very elaborate, and 
costly pieces of statuary. Immediately, upon enter- 
ing the Cathedral, you find yourself surrounded, on 
every hand, by the statues, erected by a grateful people, 
to the heroes, whose fame has penetrated, even, to the 
uttermost ends of the earth; and almost the first which 
attracts your attention is, that to the valiant warrior, 
who fell at Waterloo, Gen. Sir WiUiam Ponsonby, 
whose horse was killed under him, on that eventful day,, 
and which left him to the tender mercies of the 
French. This piece of statuary represents Ponsonby, 
almost in a state of nudity, slipping from his horse. 



ST. Paul's cathedral. 93 

and a female figure, personating Victory, holding out 
to him a crown; also, one to Gen. Sir John Moore, 
who fell at Corunna, in Spain, during the war with 
Napoleon, and who was buried at midnight, according 
to the poem, with which every school boy is familiar, 
beginning — 

"Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, 
As his corse to the rampart we hurried." 

He is represented, as being interred by the figures of 
Valor, and Victory, and Spain erects the standard over 
the dead warrior's head. Dr. Samuel Johnson, the 
great lexicographer, is represented with a scroll in his 
hand, and in an attitude, indicating the profoundest 
meditation. John Howard, the celebrated philan- 
thropist, has, also, a statue, which represents him 
as clad in the Eoman toga, with a key in one hand, and 
a scroll in the other. He is represented as entering a 
prison, and, as was his wont, bringing food and cloth- 
ing to the unhappy inmates. Truly, as I gazed upon 
the statue of this grand Christian hero, in the midst of 
England's military chieftains, I recalled the noble work, 
which had caused John Howard's name to be spoken 
with reverence, throughout the length and breadth of 
Christendom ; and I felt the full force of the saying 
that, " Peace hath her victories, not less renowned than 
War." . The crowning glory, however, of St. Paul's, is 
the monument to Lord Nelson, "^by Flaxman, which is 
most imposing, and, is, truly, a noble work of art. Nel- 
son is represented with a cloak, concealing the loss of 



94 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

his right arm, which he suffered at Cadiz, and he leans 
upon an anchor, supported on a cable, which is coiled 
up. The cornice bears the names of his three great vic- 
tories, — Copenhagen, the Nile, and Trafalgar. The 
pedestal is embellished with figures, in bas-relief, repre- 
senting the German Ocean, the Baltic Sea, the Nile, and 
the Mediterranean, the gallant Nelson having valiantly 
sustained the honor of the English flag, in all these 
waters. At the foot, crouches the British Lion, and 
there is, also, a female figure, impersonating Britannia, 
and, who seems to be inciting a group of young sailors 
to emulate the great admiral's glorious example. 

It is said that, at the battle of the Nile, Nelson ex- 
claimed " Either victory or Westminster Abbey," thus 
showinghis appreciation of the glory of having his ashes 
mino-led with those of England's most illustrious 
dead ; but, nevertheless, he found his resting place in 
the crypts of St. Paul, where he lies, amid a most 
goodly company, of which, however, more anon. Of 
special interest to Americans, I imagine, are the mon- 
uments to Gen. Ross, who, in the war of 1812, burned 
the Capitol, at Washington, besides committing other 
acts of vandalism, but, who was afterwards killed, at 
the battle of Bladensburg ; and to the Generals, Pack- 
enham and Gibbs, who fell at the glorious victory of 
New Orleans, where General Jackson put 2,000 Brit- 
ish Jiors de combat, with the unparalleled loss of 
eight killed and seven wounded, considering the Brit- 
ish loss and the magnitude of his unexampled vie-' 
tory ; but, from the boastful inscriptions on these 



NOTED MONUMENTS. ^ 95 

monuments, if you did not know better, you might 
be led to believe, that these men had been the very 
embodiment of all that is chivalrous and gallant. 

Among others, of note, are the monument commemo- 
rating the achievements of Lord Collingwood, who was 
Vice-Admiral, under Lord Nelson, at Trafalgar, where 
the naval power of France was utterly destroyed, and 
driven from the seas, and the threatened invasion of 
England, by Napoleon, forever frustrated, and on whom 
the chief command devolved, after the death of Nelson ; 
the one to Sir Ealph Abercrombie, who fell in Egypt, 
in 1801; to Henry Hallam, the historian of the Middle 
Ages ; to Lord Cornwallis, whose surrender, at 
Yorktown, virtually ended our war for independence*; 
to Sir Joshua Eeynolds, whose epitaph, most justly 
describes him, as the " prince of the painters of his 
age ; " to Gen. Lord Heathfield, who, in the last cen- 
tury, so gloriously defended Gibraltar, during the noted 
three year's siege, by the combined fleets and armies of 
Spain, and which resulted in their final discomfiture ; to 
Sir Astley Cooper, the great surgeon, and many others, 
who might be mentioned, but these are, perhaps, among 
the most noteworthy. 

The " Iron Duke," Lord Wellington, has here, a 
noble monument, being represented, as reposing on a 
lofty sarcophagus, overshadowed by a canopy of mar- 
ble, which is supported by twelve handsome columns 
of Corinthian marble. Above, is a colossal group 
which represents *' Valor overcoming Cowardice." 
Wellington and Nelson, the two great ideal warriors of 



96 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

England, the one, in military, and the other, in naval 
achievements, are both buried in the " crypts " of St. 
Paul. By this term, is meant the subterranean por- 
tions of the cathedral, which contain the immense pil- 
lars, forty feet square, which are needed, to support the 
vast weight of the mighty dome of the cathedral, the 
statuary, etc. ; and, directly beneath the center of the 
dome, is the sarcophagus of Lord Nelson, of black 
marble, and which bears the simple inscription, " Ho- 
ratio, Viscount Nelson ; " while, not far oif, as is fitting, 
reposes Lord Collingwood who, as said above, was 
Nelson's Vice-Admiral, at Trafalgar. The sarcophagus 
of Wellington, consisting of a huge block of porphyry, 
resting on a base of granite, is at the left hand of the 
crypts, and lit with gas from four polished candelabra ; 
and near it, also, is the sarcophagus of Gen. Picton, 
who fell, shot through the head, while leading the 
charge on the bloody day of Waterloo ; and equally 
fitting is it that he, too, who " rushed into the field and 
foremost, fighting, fell," should " sleep the last sleep " 
near the Iron Duke, who was his commander-in-chief, 
on that historic day. In a chamber, behind the sar- 
cophagus of Lord Nelson, is to be seen, the funeral car 
of Wellington, just, as it was used, in 1859, at the 
obsequies of the " Iron Duke," still hung with all its 
sable trimmings, and rich with decorations, showing 
the nation's grief for the illustrious dead, and which 
was cast from guns, taken in his various victories. 
Among other famous dead, whose ashes repose near 
Wellington and Nelson, may be mentioned the painters, 



SHAMELESS EXTORTION. 97 

Sir Edwin Landseer, and Sir Benjamin West, the lat- 
ter, an American, of Quaker parentage; and, "last, 
but, not least," Sir Ciiristopher Wren, the architect of 
St. Paul's, sleeps beneath the majestic structure which 
is, itself, a noble monument to his genius. How truly 
could he have exclaimed, when he saw the noble edifice, 
rearing its proud spire, heavenward, exegimonumentum 
perennius aere ! Of course, you must understand that, 
to see these sights, in Europe, always costs something, 
and, in St. Paul's, although you can see everything, 
which is to be seen, in the body of the cathedral free 
of charge, after that, you are charged so much ad- 
mission to each place of interest. I will here give you 
the scale of prices for St. Paul's, and will, also, state 
here, once for all, that you are beset with the most 
shameless extortion, from one quarter and another, 
almost, without limit, and, without ceasing, from the 
time you laud on the shores of Europe, until you get 
out of their clutches, — when yon go on board ship, in 
order to return to your native land. 

If this be the case (and any tourist will tell you the 
same thing), in churches and cathedrals, which, like re- 
ligion, you would naturally think, would be " without 
money and without price," you may expect to be, " lit- 
erally fleeced," when you get beyond their sacred pre- 
cincts ; and, indeed, you will not be disappointed. The 
whispering gallery, and the stone, and golden galleries, 
which are on the outside of the dome, cost sixpence; 
ascent to the ball, one shilling, and sixpence; library, 
geometrical staircase and large bell, sixpence, and the 
7 



98 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

crypts, sixpence more, costing in all three shillings 
English, or about seventy-five cents, American money. 
Next, I w^ill speak of our ascent, from the body of the 
church, to the inside of the ball, which is almost at the 
very top of the structure, and it is, indeed, a tiresome 
journey, but one well worth the trouble it costs, to view 
the superb panorama of the great metropolis, stretch- 
ing for miles in every direction, from an elevation, four 
hundred feet above the London streets. Just 'think of 
it, will you ? The guide book says : ' ' The ball is only 
six hundred and sixteen steps above the tesselated 
pavement of the church," but the view, which I ob- 
tained from my lofty eyrie, of the stupendous labyrinth 
so far below me, and which I shall speak of more at 
length, presently, more than repaid me, for the exer- 
tion and outlay, which the ascent cost me, as the day 
was bright and sunshiny ; in fact, unusually fine, for 
London. 

After toiling up 260 steps from the pavement of the 
church, after almost a period of infinity (as it seems to 
the already exhausted climber) passed in clambering up 
a narrow, and dark winding stairway ; now, and then 
groping your way in gloom, which is rendered all the 
denser, after passing occasional gleams of gas-light, 
from a stray burner, here, and there, you reach the 
celebrated whispering gallery of St. Paul's ; which, in 
its effects, is very similar to the one, which we after- 
wards visited, in the crypts of the Pantheon, at Paris. 
This is a gallery, with a light fancy railing, running 
around the inside of the base of the dome, the whole 



WHISPEKING GALLERY. 99 

distance, which, as the dome is at the outside base, 180 
feet in diameter, would make the inside circumference 
of the dome, which forms the whispering gallery, 
about 320 feet, and, here, you first get some idea of the 
immense size of the dome, which is far above your 
head, and is much larger, and more imposing, than the 
dome of the capitol at Washington. You are then 
instructed by your guide, — who is, of course, one of 
the paid officials of the church, but who, nevertheless, 
always expects you to grease his " itching palm " with 
a shilling, at least, for his valuable services, in addi- 
tion to what you have already paid to see the sights, — 
to go about half way around the gallery, which would 
be at a point about 108 feet across the dome, or 160 
feet around the circle, and then apply your ear against 
the wall of the dome. Your conductor has, meanwhile, 
stationed himself near the entrance, and, applying his 
mouth to the wall, he utters a gentle whisper, which is 
reproduced in your ear, almost, in a conversational tone 
of voice. 

He, also, claps his hands, which sounds like the dis- 
charge of a volley of small arms. The effect, how- 
ever, is far inferior to the results witnessed in the 
Pantheon, at Paris,- where the conductor struck the 
wall, with a small stick, and the echo resounded in our 
ears, like the reverberations of the loudest thunder. 
While in the whispering gallery, your attention is 
directed to the beautiful decorations, and frescoes, on 
the ceiling of the dome, by the celebrated artist, Thorn- 



100 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

hill, and which represent various interesting events in 
the life of the great apostle, St. Paul. This work 
must have been attended with frightful danger, and it 
is said that, while the frescoing of the dome was in pro- 
gress, one of the artists, in his enthusiasm, while gazing 
admiringly upon the creation of his own genius,, 
stepped back, almost to the very verge of the scaflfold, 
which was more than 300 feet above the pavement of 
the church, and, in another moment, he would have been 
dashed to atoms, had not a brother artist, with rare 
presence of mind, seeing his imminent peril, dashed 
his brush over the fresco, when the indignant painter 
rushed forward to interfere, and was thus saved from 
an awful death. 

One hundred and eighteen steps more, and you reach 
the stone gallery , upon the outside of the dome , and which 
is enclosed by a stone parapet,whence it derives its name. 
From this point, the visitor obtains his first panoramic 
viewof the city of London, andhere,Ithink, forthe first 
time, he begins to have even a faint conception, of the 
immensity of this stupendous collection of houses, and 
inhabitants, the largest in the world ; which covers an 
area of 122 square miles, or about eleven miles on 
each side, if the city were built in a solid square, 
(which would make it embrace about half the area of 
Ancient Babylon, which was fifteen miles square, but 
which contained, within its walls, vast areas of tillable 
land, upon which might be raised supplies for her 
myriads of inhabitants, in case of siege), and which has 



VIEW FROM THE DOME. 101 

7,400 streets, 728,794 houses, 1,100 churches, 7,500 
public houses, 1,700 coffee houses, and 500 hotels and 
inns. 

Lord Cairns once said in Parliament, that " a 
man might hop from one end of London to the other, 
if only he might stop at the public houses," and, prob- 
ably, he was right in his astounding assertion, for the 
statistics show that, in this vast city, there are, annu- 
ally, consumed 45,000,000 gallons of ale and porter, 
2,000,000 gallons of spirits, and 8,000,000 gallons of 
wine, to say nothing of the daily water consumption 
of 150,000,000 gallons. Are not these statistics truly 
startling? Whilst a ship is sailing over the ocean, her 
path is always, of course, represented by the diame- 
ter of a circle, of which the horizon is the circumfer- 
ence, and I was told by the purser of the City of 
Eome, that, on bright daj^s, the ordinary limit of 
vision at sea was, probably, about ten miles, in every 
direction, which would make the distance from one 
point of the horizon to the opposite point, about twenty 
miles. 

The day, on which our party ascended to the 
ball of St. Paul's, was bright and sunny, and I could 
see for a considerable distance in any direction, say, 
perhaps, for four or five miles, all around the dome ; 
but my eyes failed to reach even the suburbs of the 
great metropolis, and its innumerable streets, and 
buildings faded away into nothingness, in the misty 
sunshine, apparently, at that great distance, as a solid 
and continuous mass of brick and mortar, as they 



102 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

were, at our very feet. This statement, of what the 
glorious view seemed to unfold to our startled vision, 
may give my readers some idea of this mammoth hive 
of human industry, vagabondage and crime, of pau- 
perism and of wealth, which are, alike, unlimited, for, 
in no other city on the face of the globe, can be pre- 
sented such a conglomeration of all the extremes of life, 
as in this marvelous city of London. 

It was from this lofty pinnacle, that I first obtained 
a glimpse of the hoary, and weather-beaten , but, never- 
theless, venerated, Westminster Abbey, and also of the 
magnificent Houses of Parliament, right at the very 
edge of the river Thames, and which Carlyle so aptly 
described, as " that work of modern confectionery," 
in whose august opinion, I fully concurred, upon a visit 
which I made to them, a little later. Still higher 
up is the golden gallery, and at the foot of the great 
stone lantern, as it is called, which crowns the cathe- 
dral, and sustains the weight of the huge ball, and 
cross. 

At this point, your guide calls your attention to 
a hole in the floor, about 6 or 8 inches in diame- 
ter, and asks you to look at the wonderful sight below 
you. It is more than 300 feet, to the floor of the cathe- 
dral, and the persons there, who were engaged in divine 
worship, at the time, looked like the veriest pigmies. 
I shall never forget the impression the sight made upon 
me, and I, involuntarily, looked at the floor upon 
which we were standing at the time, and wondered, if it 
was entirely sound, and trustworthy. 



GEOMETEICAL STAIRCASE. 103 

I will mention, here, several things worthy of remark 
along the way which I have omitted to notice, in my 
anxiety to transport my readers, along with me, to the top 
of St. Paul's. The large, self-supporting staircase,wind- 
ing around and around, until it seemed almost intermin- 
able, is called the Geometrical Staircase, and the steps 
hang together, like a good many healthy, able-bodied 
people I know of, *' without any visible means of sup- 
port," except the bottom step. As you pass, on your 
way, to see the great bell of St. Paul's, you step, for a 
moment, into the library of the church, which contains 
many rare, and curious works, among its 9,000 volumes, 
having the first book of common prayer ever printed, 
and a set of old monastic manuscripts, which are said 
to have been saved from the archives of the old St. 
Paul's which, as has been said above, formerly stood 
on the site of the present structure, when England was 
given over to superstition and idolatry, and was a 
Eoman Catholic country, full of convents, monasteries, 
and cathedrals, of which there are said to have been 
more than six hundred during those times. 

The floor of this room , is a very handsome mosaic, exe- 
cuted in wood. The bell weighs nearly 12,000 pounds, 
and is never tolled, except when a death occurs, or a 
burial takes place in the royal family, or in case of the 
death of the Bishop of London, of a Lord Mayor, dying 
in office, or in case of the death of the Dean of St. Paul's. 
The clock is an immense affair, with a dial-plate 20 
feet in diameter, the minute hand being ten feet in 
length, the hour hand about six feet, and the weights. 



104 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

and every thing else in proportion. Now, for the con- 
clusion of our visit to St. Paul's, and we nerve our- 
4 selves anew, for the ascent of the ball. The place 
which you pass through, in order to reach the ball, is 
so narrow, that a very fleshy man could hardly get 
through, even if he should live to get up that high, 
which, from my experience, I am very much inclined to 
** doubt, as, at that time, I weighed about 185 pounds, 
which made it with me almost a case of "fat man's 
misery.'* 

However, when you at last get up inside the ball, 

** you find that it is large enough to accommodate,. 
at least a half dozen men, together, and, in fact, there 
were about that many of us, inside the ball, on that oc- 

^ casion. At first, you peep out a few times, rather tim- 
idly, as the wind which, on the pavement, four hundred 
feet below, was only like a gentle zephyr, you find here, 
blowing something like a Western cyclone, and you, 
in voluntarily, wonder if the thing is altogether safe, and 
you fervently wish yourself once more on terra firma, 
until the manifold beauties of the scene make you for- 
get yourself, for the time being, then you give one 
" last, long, lingering look " around, clamber down the 
six hundred steps, which you have mounted with such 
fatigue, look hastily back at the heroic figures, which 
embellish the body of the church, as you walk through, 
and, regretfully, pass out into the church-yard of St. 
Paul's, and back into the busy city, almost at one stride, 
and you have left this noble mausoleum of many 
of England's greatest celebrities, perhaps, for ever. 



<k> 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 105 

Next, we wended our way to Westminster Abbey, and 
to say that I approached that ancient pile (which, with 
its " many clustered shafts, and pointed arches," was 
founded by King Henry III. six hundred years ago) 
with feelings akin to awe and veneration, would not be 
very far from the truth, and I feel, only, too painfully, 
my entire inability to give, even the faintest idea, of its 
grandeur and its sublimity, far less, to speak with fit- 
ness, of its historic dead. While the grand old Abbey 
is not nearly so imposing as St Paul's, yet, when you 
think of what remains of human greatness, learning, 
and wisdom (to say nothing of cruelty, tyranny, and 
all phases of human wickedness, as well) lie here 
'* entombed, and waiting for the resurrection morn," 
just, as all other dead, of common mould, the glowing 
words of Byron (although, not used by him, to describe 
the Abbey, at all), seem not inapt, and more nearly to 
express the feelings of a person of thought, and sensi- 
bility, upon such an interesting and eventful occasion, 
than any other quotation, with which I am, at present, 
familiar : — 

" Where'er we tread, 'tis haunted, holy ground; 

No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould, 
But one vast realm of wonder spreads around, 

And all the muse's tales seem fairly told, 
Till the sense aches with gazing to behold 

The scenes, our earliest dreams have dwelt upon." 

The Abbey is built, as usual, in the form of the Latin 
cross, and the following are its dimensions : It is 416 
feet in length, from the two western towers, which are 



106 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

225 feet high, to Henry VII. 's Chapel, and, including 
that famous chapel, is 530 feet in length ; the nave is 
166 feet in length, and about 38 in breadth, and the 
choir is 155 feet, by 38. 

The chapel of Henry VII. is 104 feet in length, 
and, about 136 in breadth. Sir Henry Cole, the author 
of " A Hand-book for Westminster Abbey," says that, 
the ' ' Abbey has always seemed to me the most varied 
and grandest of our national specimens of ecclesiasti- 
cal architecture," and the foregoing statistics, concern- 
ing the Abbey, are obtained from his valuable, and 
interesting work. We obtained our first view of the 
Abbey, from the north, which is the point from which 
the structure is generally approached by the visitor, as 
this portion faces toward the busiest part of the city ; 
and this is most disappointing at the first visit, as the 
Abbey, on this side, seems very much wanting in height, 
and majesty of proportions, for a place, so full of grand 
historic associations, and, more particularly, as we 
have just come from viewing the immense proportions 
of St. Paul's. 

Just before we reach Westminster we pass by 
Parliament Square (which is directly in front of 
the Abbey, and near the Houses of Parliament), 
which contains the statues of Lord Palmerston, 
Canning, Sir Eobert Peel, who justly earned the na- 
tion's gratitude for the noble part he took in repeal- 
ing the obnoxious Corn Laws; and, notably, a fine 
bronze statue of the late Prime Minister, Lord Bea- 
consfield (Disraeli), and pass, for the first time, 



TEMPLE OF HONOR. 107 

within the portals of that famous structure, which, 
alone, is worth the perils of an ocean voyage to see, 
and which is the *' Walhalla," or Temple of Honor to 
all Englishmen, whether of high or low degree. 

We pass in at the north transept, and, almost, immedi- 
ately we are dazzled, and bewildered, by the "embarrass- 
ment of riches," of a historic kind, which is indissol- 
ubly blended with England's history, and, so, with the 
whole world's history as well ; and in the surroundings 
which we behold, iu that *' dim religious light," the first 
tribute of a nation's admiration, and love, which rivets 
our attention, is the elaborate monument to William 
Pitt, Earl of Chatham, who died in 1778, and who was 
the father of William Pitt, the unrivaled Minister ; 
whose brilliant opponent, and leader, of Opposition in 
the House of Commons, Charles James Fox, who 
admired Bonaparte, almost as much as Pitt detested 
and feared him, is buried, near the younger Pitt in the 
north aisle ; and thus, by a singular coincidence, though, 
they were bitter enemies while in life, yet death has 
leveled all distinctions, as usual, and, there, the two 
most brilliant statesmen, perhaps, that England has 
ever seen, lie, almost, side by side, mouldering into one 
common clay, and, no doubt, it was their close proxim- 
ity, which suggested Scott's oft quoted lines: — 

** Drop upon Fox's grave, the tear, 
'Twill trickle to his rival's bier." 

These famous dead *' sleep their last sleep," in the 
north aisle of the nave, and, near them, lie Grattan, the 



108 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

famous lawyer, and that prince of orators, dramatists, 
and wits, the incomparable Eichard Brindsley Sheridan. 

The monument of the Earl of Chatham is one of the 
most elaborate to be seen within the walls of the 
Abbey, and for that reason I will try to give my read- 
ers some faint conception of its grandeur. Lord 
Chatham is represented by a life-size statue, as though 
in the attitude of delivering an address, while at his 
feet are seated two female figures representing Wisdom 
and Courage ; in the center Brittania, who, according 
to the old quotation, "rules the wave," with her tri- 
dent, and to the right and left elaborate bas-reliefs 
representing respectively the earth and sea. Of course, 
many persons have memorial tablets or monuments to 
them, in the Abbey, whose remains are not interred 
there — sometimes even persons of distinction — and it 
is now so filled up that interments rarely take place 
there, and members of the Royal Family have not been 
interred there now for more than a century, the last 
interments of the royal family being King George II. 
in 1760, and Queen Caroline in 1737 in the chapel of 
Henry VII, ever since that time the interments taking 
place in St. George's chapel at Windsor Castle. So, of 
course, you find the tombs of no kings or queens dur- 
ing the last century and a half in the Abbey. 

In the north aisle, also, lie the remains of Lord Pal- 
merston, George Canning, and Sir Robert Peel, spoken 
of above, as having obtained the repeal (when intended) 
ot the odious Corn Laws, and for which philanthropic 
achievement he has monuments and statues innumerable, 



"poets' corner." 109 

all over England, besides being forever enshrined in the 
hearts of his grateful countrymen of the United King- 
dom. Here, also, lies Lord Mansfield, " the father of 
English law," who is represented in his judicial robes, 
on his left hand, Justice, with her scales held up aloft, 
and on his right hand, Wisdom, opening the book of 
the law. Behind the bench, and above his lordship's 
head, is inscribed Lord Mansfield's motto, " uni 
aequus virtuti,^' with the ancient symbol of death, a 
youth with an extinguished torch. 

We next passed directly across the center of the 
Abbey to that sacred nook, the " Poets' Corner," where 
we find commemorated the brightest names in English 
literature, both in poetry and prose, from the time of 
old Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of English poetry, 
down to our owm time, and where Americans see, 
with unfeigned pleasure and" satisfaction, the bust 
of our own Longfellow ; but I missed, extremely, one 
whose incomparable poetic brilliancy and genius surely 
merits some fitting recognition in this hallowed spot, at 
the hands of his, apparently, unappreciative countrymen. 
I need hardly say, I allude to the peerless Byron, but no 
matter ; the world has fully recognized his immortal 
genius, and when his morbid and fiery spirit took its 
flight to that unseen world, "from whose bourne no 
traveller returns," 

"They carved not a line, they raised not a stone, 
But left him alone in his glory," 

which shall not fade away or become dim, even in the 
lapse of ages ! 



110 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABEOAD. 

Here, I can only mention the names of the most 
prominent occupants of the *' Poets' Corner," as I 
have not the materials at hand for a more extended 
notice, than I have given above, of the various tombs 
and statues whose names are legion. In this sacred 
-nook, which contains the dust of the greatest 
intellects, and the greatest factors in human progress 
that the world has ever seen, or ever will see again, 
undoubtedly, lie Geo. Grote, the historian of Greece; 
David Garrick, the famous actor ; Joseph Addison, the 
greatest prose writer of the eighteenth century, and 
author of the Spectator ; Lord Macaulay, the elo- 
quent Whig historian, whose graceful periods have 
amazed the literary world; Thackeray, the keenest 
analyst of human nature, in modern literature, except, 
perhaps, Balzac ; Oliver Goldsmith, whose '* Yicar of 
Wakefield" will always be a classic; and John Gay, 
the author of the " Beggar's Opera," which is the 
starting point of our modern opera bouffe, and who 
wrote his own epitaph, which has been quoted time and 
again, though, perhaps, it is a trifle irreverent, if we 
consider by what goodly company the gay and licen- 
tious wit is surrounded, and also that his ashes lie 
within the portals of the most venerable and renowned 
mausoleum, probably, to be found upon the face of 
the globe. 

" Life is a jest, and. all things show it; 
I thought so once, but now I know it," 

Here, also, lie Thompson, the poet of the seasons, 
and Thomas Campbell, who wrote the " Pleasures of 



" BAED OF AVON," 111 

Hope," but " th' applause, delight, the wonder of our 
stage," the " bard of Avon, sweet Will Shakespeare " 
is not here ; but we see a life size statue of the poet, 
and the epitaph, as is fitting, is taken from his writ- 
ings — 

"The cloud-cappe'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 
Yea, all which it inherits, shall dissolve, 
And, like the baseless fabric of a vision 
Leave not a wreck behind." 

The time will, no doubt, come when Shakespere's 
remains will rest in this sanctum sanctorum, where 
they should have been interred long ere this, and surely 
nothing but a feeling of superstition, produced by the 
perusal of the frightful malediction which the poet 
himself has invoked upon the devoted head of him 
who shall dare to disturb the quiet of his last resting 
place at Stratford, has prevented their removal to 
Westminster Abbey long since. I give below the 
poet's blood-curdling invocation against the would-be 
despoiler of his tomb : — 

" Good friend, for Jesus' sake, f orbeare 
To digg the dust encloased heare ; 
Blest be ye man yt spares these stones, 
And cursed be he yt moves my bones." . 

In this connection, it may not be without interest to 
our readers to state that the town of Fredericksburg, 
Virginia, has a relic which directly connects her his- 
tory with the bard of Avon, and which, though rarely 
seen, and utterly neglected, the British Museum, 



112 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

doubtless, would purchase at its weight in gold, or even 
more, if only apprised of the bare existance of such an 
(invaluable) relic. This relic is nothing more nor less 
than an old slab of red standstone, which is to be seen 
in the Masonic burial ground at that place, flat on its 
back, under a tangle of weeds and creepers, with the 
upper corner chipped off, and the old English lettering 
dim, but still distinctly traceable. The inscription ex- 
plains itself fully, and I copy it in this place : — 

" Here lies the body of 
Edwakd Heedon 
Practitioner in Physics and Chirurgery. 
Bom in Bedfordshire, England, in the year of our Lord, 1542. 

Was Contemporary with. 
And One of the Pall-bearers to "William Shakespere of the Avon. 
After a brief illness. 
His Spirit Ascended in the Year of Our Lord, 1618. 
Aged 76." 

Next, we come to the east side of the Poet's Cor- 
ner, and there we find Matthew Prior, politician and 
poet, Thomas, Gray, John Milton, Edmund Spenser, 
author of the " Faerie Queen," and called the *' prince 
of poets in his time." Ben Johnson, the friend and 
contemporary of Shakespeare, and, on the pedestal, I 
noticed especially the inscription, " O rare Ben John- 
son," as it is spelled on the base (and not " Jonson," 
as it is usually quoted), Geoffrey Chaucer, the author 
of the *' Canterbury Tales," and John Dry den, who 
translated Virgil, and who wrote, among many other 
poems Annusi Mirabilis (^ov the "Wonderful Year '), 
which commemorates the great plague and great fire 



FOUNDER OF THE ABBEY 113 

of London, both of which notable events occurred 
in the same year, 1666, and the latter of which ia kept 
before the ejes of Londoners constantly by the great 
Fire Monument which stands on Fish Street Hill, near 
the spot where the great conflagration started. 

These things we saw. without charge, but to see the 
chapels of Westminster, of which there are nine, 
you must have one of the church officials conduct you 
through, which he generally does, in parties of fifteen or 
twenty persons, each of whom pays sixpence for his 
trouble, and for the lecture which he gives you as you 
visit the various chapels. However, it does not take 
very long to make up a party containing that many per- 
sons, as the Abbey is usually so thronged with curious 
visitors, that the services of the Vergers are almost con- 
stantly in demand. 

The oldest chapel which you visit is that of Edward 
the Confessor, who, indeed, was the founder of the 
Abbey, and among the tombs of note here are those 
of Henry III., whose father was a Knight Templar, and 
which order buried him with distinguished obsequies. 
Eleanor, the wife of Edward L, Queen Philippa, 
the wife of Edward HI., and noted as beins: the 
mother of fourteen children, one of them born the 
Prince of Wales, but better known as the illustrous 
" Black Prince," whose achievements in arms have 
given him an enviable place in history, but who, 
broken down by his many arduous campaigns, died 
before his father, in 1376, the latter dying in 1377, 
and, as being related to no less than thirtv crowned 



114 A KNIGHT TEMPLAE ABROAD. 

heads, and King Kichard II., who was murdered on St. 
Valentine's Day, 1399. Here you also see the ancient 
coronation chair of the Scottish Kings, and the chair 
made expressly for the coronation of the Prince of 
Orange (William III.), after the Revolution of 1688, 
and his wife. Queen Mary, so that both might occupy 
the Coronation Chair, and be crowned at the same 
time, upon which condition, only, "William consented 
to accept the throne of England, he being unwilling 
to fill any other relation to his wife. Queen Mary, 
than that of being crowned and reigning on equal terms 
with her. 

The finest and largest chapel of the Abbey is that of 
King Henry VII., and here lie King Henry himself, 
*' Bloody Mary," and "Good Queen Bess." Here, 
also, may be seen a monument to the unfortunate 
Mary, Queen of Scots, who was first interred at 
Peterboro, after her death on the scaffold at Fother- 
ingay Castle, in 1587, but whose remains were after- 
wards removed to Westminster, and near her is the 
tomb of Charles II., the " Merrye Monarch," with 
General Monk, who was the chief instrument in his 
restoration to the throne of his father in 1660, and who 
is seen as though standing guard over his tomb, which 
is a very pretty conceit, I think. 

Near the great Queen Elizabeth, rest the bones of the 
two little princes who were smothered in the Tower by the 
connivance of their cruel uncle Richard, the Hunchback. 
It would, however, take a large volume to describe 
half way the glories of the Abbey, and its countless 



*'OLD PARR." 115 

historic dead, and I will not weary you much longer 
with details; but there are several things yet which I 
wish to speak of. One tombstone, I especially desire 
to mention, and it is located in the south transept near 
the tomb of Chas. Dickens. This is the tomb of " old 
Parr," as he is called in England to this day, and the 
following is the inscription on his tomb, which is prob- 
ably without a parallel in what is known as *' grave- 
yard literature." "Thomas Parr, of ye county of 
Sallop, born in A. D. 1483. He lived in the reigns of 
nine princes, viz.: King Edward IV., King Edward 
v., King Edward VT., King Henry VH., King Henry 
VHI., Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, King James, 
and King Charles; aged 152 years, and was buried 
here November 15, 1635." 

What vicissitudes of history did not that man of 
such longevity, (who, most marvelous of all, lived 
in three successive centuries, the fifteenth, sixteenth 
and seventeenth, during the Middle Ages ; something 
which no other man except himself has ever done most 
likely since the days of the Patriarchs,) behold during 
these nine eventful reigns, during which some of 
the most momentous events of England's history took 
place? I will mention but two more tombs in the 
Abbey, and then pass out from its sacred portals once 
more, into the sunshine to meditate, at some future 
time, upon the glories I have so lately quitted. 

Near the chapel of Edward the Confessor, is the 
ancient monument of the Knight Templar, " Edward 



116 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Crouchback," the second son of Henry III. , from whom 
the house of Lancaster derived its claim to the English 
throne, and the claims of whose rival, the House of York, 
led to the bloody " Wars of the Eoses." On the sar- 
cophagus are remains of the figures of the ten Knights 
who accompanied Edward to the Holy Land, and near 
by is the monument of another Knight Templar, Aymer 
de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, who was assassinated 
in France in 1327. Near these monuments is one to 
Gen. Wolfe, who fell at the capture of Quebec, and of 
whom it is said that while floating down the St. Law- 
rence, on his way to surprise that important strong- 
hold of the French in Canada, as though he had some 
premonition of his approaching end, he quoted the fol- 
lowing couplet from Gray's Elegy : — 

"The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,' 
Await, alike, the inevitable hour; 
The path of glory leads but to the grave." 

That evening, I was extremely desirous of seeing 
the celebrated actor Mr. Henry Irving, of whom I had 
heard so much, already, in America, and, also, to see 
his gifted, leading lady, Miss Ellen Terry, at the well 
known Lyceum Theater, in London ; but the house not 
being very large, and at the same time, tickets being 
almost unp recede iitedly high, and besides that, having 
been advised that there was standing room only to be 
had that evening, I concluded I would have to curb my 
enthusiasm, and wait till I see 'em in America, so I went 



SAVOY THEATER. 117 

to the Savoy Theater, in the Strand, instead. (By the 
way, a patent on this pun has already been applied 
for, and no infringement will be allowed, under any 
circumstances, whatever, and, therefore, we fondly 
trust that none will be attempted). There, I saw the 
charming opera of *' lolanthe," bj Gilbert and Sullivan 
(the latter since Knighted, and made Sir. Arthur Sul- 
livan), and aside from its charming music, and pretty 
costumes, I was highly diverted, if not edified, by 
seeing the supposed Lord Chancellor of England, 
dressed in his high official robes, and masquerading 
on the comic stage. 

I had already seen the genuine barristers, in their 
wigs, and gowns, at York, at the Criminal Assizes, and 
was, especially, pleased to have an opportunity of 
forming: some idea of how the Lord Chancellor of En- 
gland would look upon the veritable wool-sack, and, 
here, I saw his exact facsimile^ although, in rather a 
new, and unusual role. It took a strong effort of the 
imagination for me, even, to think of a haughty, and 
dignified Lord Chancellor of England, " cutting pigeon 
wings" on the opera stage, and making love to his own 
ward in chancery, for which, as he said, himself, he 
was liable to be fined heavily, for contempt of his 
own court, and how to obtain his own consent, to 
marry his own ward, was one of the trouble she had to 
contend with, and I think that it was this absurd 
incongruity, which amused the audience, more than 
the witticisms of his soi-disant lordship, and his absurd 



118 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD 

antics on the stage, seemed far removed, indeed, from 
the staid demeanor, which we would naturally look 
for, in a genuine Lord Chancellor. 

One of the leading parts, on that evening, was sus- 
tained by Miss Fortesque, a charming actress, who 
was said, at the time, to be engaged to a real live 
English lord, Lord Garmoyle, and the society papers 
were all on the qui vive, in regard to this juicy morceau 
of news. Since my return to America, I have seen 
the sequel to this love affair, in the shape of a heavy 
suit for breach of promise, in which the noble lord 
was mulcted, in a compromise, for the immense sum 
of $50,000 damages ; a pretty heavy price for the 
fickle fancy of an opei'a houffe actress, but Lord Gar- 
moyle is not the first lord "Very Soft" (nor will he 
be the last one, either), who "has paid very dear for 
his whistle." 

It is said, that this is the largest verdict, that was 
ever rendered in the British Isles, in a case of breach 
of promise, and an amusing discovery has been made, 
since the trial, in regard to the well conceived, touching 
and highly edifying letters, which were written by the 
fair plaintiff, Miss Fortesque, to the defendant, Lord 
Garmoyle, and which were much commended, by his 
lordship from the Bench, were taken verbatim^ et lit- 
eratim^ et spellatim, et punctuatim, from somebody's 
"Complete Letter Writer." By the way, the great 
^^ mulcted^' is now in this country. I was much sur- 
prised, to find that I had to pay a penny for the pro- 



THE PEOGRAMME. 119 

gramme of the evening's performance, and I thought 
how different were the ideas of the dull, and heavy 
Britons, in regard to business push, and enterprise, 
from us, their descendants, over here, in America, in 
regard to such things. 

The programme contained no advertisements, what- 
ever, as ours do, but was simply a bill of the play, for 
which the enterprising manager charged about two 
cents. 

The next day, about twenty of the original party, 
which had set out from New York were to start 
for the Continent, by the morning express, from Char- 
ing Cross Station to Folkestone, at which point we had 
arranged to embark for Boulogne, which is what is 
known as the middle route across the English Channel, 
the shortest route being that from Dover to Calais, 
and the longest that from Newhaven to Dieppe, so I 
will postpone any further description of London until 
my return from the Continent, when I shall make a 
more protracted stay, and then will resume the narra- 
tive of the sights of London so, for the present, we 
will bid adieu to murky, gloomy London, and hie us 
away as fast as steam can carry us to the gay and 
brilliant French metropolis. 



120 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 



CHAPTER V. 



FEOM LONDON TO PAKIS. 

JfTN accordance with the arrangements of Sir E. M. 

3L Jenkins, our pilgrims being considered by him too 
numerous to travel in one party on the Continent, the 
larger portion were to leave London the same night 
for the Continent, via Harwich and the North Sea, 
and travel in the reverse order of our projected route, 
they ascending the Rhine, and we descending that no- 
ble and historic stream ; and our programme included 
a reunion of our entire party at Interlaken, the 
<' Swiss Saratoga," which was carried out to the letter, 
and will be adverted to more at length when that in- 
teresting Mecca for European pilgrims, as well as Pil- 
grim Templars, is reached in the due course of travel. 
The next morning about nine o'clock, we proceeded 
to the Charing Cross Station, which is unusually fine 
and imposing, and has also an elegant hotel, which is 
known as the Charing Cross Hotel, connected with it; 
and at this station, we entered our railway carriages 
for our trip to Folkestone, and thence to the fascinat- 
ing and dangerous Paris, the 8ans Souci of the uni- 
verse, if any in truth there be. In front of the 
station stands a magnificent Gothic monument, which 
is a copy of "Eleanor's Cross," which was erected. 



CHARING CROSS. 121 

in 1291, by Edward I. at Charing Cross to commemo- 
rate the spot where the coffin of his queen was set down 
on its last halt on the way to Westminster Abbey. 

The original was taken down by order of the Rump 
Parliament in 1647, which two years later beheaded 
King Charles I. Before our train pulled out of the 
station I sauntered along the platform and took a 
look at the engine which was to draw our train, 
and although the rain was falling quite fast, I noticed 
that there was no cab whatever, for the "driver" 
and " stoker," as the English term our more familar 
engineer and fireman, and there they stood in the 
rain enveloped in big gum coats, or " Mackintoshes," 
as they call them, with not the least protection from 
the weather, as well as none for the delicate machinery 
of the locomotive, which is so well protected by our 
railway cabs. At last the train steamed away, and we 
soon crossed the Charing Cross Railway Bridge over the 
Thames, and we were on our way to la belle France. 

The distance from London to Paris is something 
like two hundred and eighty-three miles, and count- 
ing the time consumed in crossing the channel at 
an average of an hour and a half to an hour and 
three-quarters, takes fr()m ten to eleven hours. The 
ride from London to Folkestone was accomplished in 
a couple of hours, and our train backed us around 
right down to the pier, where we took the packet boat 
for France, and while she was taking on board her 
usual quota of passengers, with all their luggage et id 
genus omne, I spent my time in looking at the high 



122 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

chalky cliffs of perfidious Albion, of which Macaulay 
speaks, when describing the passage through the Strait 
of Dover of the fleet which was bringing back Charles 
II., in 1660 (when he says the chalky cliffs of Dover 
were covered with thousands weeping with joy, at the 
restoration of " Prince Charlie from over the sea"), 
and in listening to the musical murmurs of the French 
language, heard for the first time in all its mellifluence 
from the lips of a number of our fellow passengers, 
and then, I first really felt that I was, or rather, soon 
would be, a " stranger in a strange land." 

True, I was myself of Huguenot extraction, and had 
some acquaintance with standard French literature, 
and could translate the language fairly well, but the 
French of Paris, and the patois which is taught in 
American boarding schools and colleges are as wide 
apart, almost, as the poles. During my travels on the 
Continent, when forced by dire necessity, I made a few 
blind staggers at speaking French without the accent^ 
but my success was not the most flattering in the 
world, as you may well imagine, and reminded me 
very forcibly of a lively anecdote which Charles Lever 
relates in the " Confessions of Con. Cregan," and as it 
fitted my case pretty well, I will here quote it for the 
edification of the students of American French. 

Lever says that " a certain Tipperary gentleman 
once called upon a countryman in Paris, and after 
ringing stoutly at the bell, the door was opened by a 
very smartly dressed ' maid,' whose grisette cap and 
apron seemed to pronounce her to be French, ' Est-ce- 



CROSSING THE CHANNEL. 123 

Oapitaine-est-ce — Monsieur 0' Shea, icif asked he 
in considerable hesitation. 

" 'Ah, sir, you're English ! ' exclaimed the maid in 
a very London accent. 

"'Yis, my little darlint,' I was askin' for Capt. 
O'Shea.' 

" 'Ah, sir, you're Irish,' said she, with a very sig- 
nificant fall of the voice. 

" ' So,' as he afterwards remarked, ' my French 
showed that I was English, and my English that I was 
Irish: " 

The most of our party, unfortunately, like our Irish 
friend just alluded to, had neglected Tom Hood's cap- 
ital advice, 

" Never go to France, unless you know the lingo ; 
If you do, like me, you'll repent, by jingo! " 

and I suspect that most of us sincerely regretted our 
shortcomings in that direction. 

We had all had our misgivings about the channel's 
being very rough, but on the contrary we were agree- 
ably surprised to find that it was a glorious, sunshiny 
morning, and we crossed over in about an hour and a 
half, the distance being about twenty-five miles ; and 
very much to our satisfaction our party had very little 
use for the bowls which lay around the cabin in the 
greatest profusion, and which were unpleasantly sug- 
gestive; nevertheless, here and there we noticed some 
one prostrated with the mat du mer, of which we had 
already had our share on the broad Atlantic, and paying 



124 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

tribute, at occasional intervals, to Father Neptune. 
Our steamer was a very fine and fast sidewheeler, 
and we went across with dispatch, and the coast of 
England had barely faded away before we began to 
distinguish afar off the outline of the French coast, so 
you may know from that, that we must have had a nice 
day for the trip. 

At Boulogne, I got my first glimpse of the 
gens cV armes, whom I had read about all my life, and 
there they were, waiting at the pier for the arrival of 
the Channel packet, with their jaunty cocked hats, 
swords, and military caps, and they presented a singu- 
lar contrast to our " nobby Broadway squad," and 
still more so to the average London policeman, who is 
awkward and ungainly to a remarkable degree. There 
is nothing especially notable about Boulogne, except 
that it is the place which Bonaparte selected as the 
rendezvous for his projected invasion of England, in 
1803, which menaced that country daily, and nightly, 
for three years, and for which he had made colossal 
preparations. 

He collected at this point, which was only twenty- 
five miles away from Dover, an army of 172,000 
of the flower of his infantry, 9,000 cavalry, and 
a fleet of 2,413 transports, for the purpose of leaping 
over the narrow barrier which interposed between 
him and his prey, and surely, since the days of the 
memorable Spanish Armada, in 1588, England has 
never been in such imminent peril as she was at 
this period. Three events chiefly conspired to pre- 



AT BOULOGNE. 125 

vent this invasion. One, the death of Villeneuve, 
Napoleon's most trusted and valued admiral, who died 
as Napoleon was about to consummate his gigantic 
project, he relying upon Yilleneuve's skill to cover the 
crossing of the transports to the English shore, and he 
deferred action in the matter for some time, to cast 
about him for a suitable successor. Another cause was 
the great coalition which the wily Pitt formed with the 
Prussians the Austrians and the Russians, and which 
caused Bonaparte to withdraw a portion of his forces 
from Boulogne, but which eventually ended in the 
unparalleled campaign of 1805, in the glories of Jena, 
Eyluu, Ulm, and Austerlitz, and in the complete hu- 
miliation of the Prussian monarchy especially. 

The crowning reason, however, which caused the 
■scheme to be finally abandoned, was the entire anni- 
hilation of the French fleet at Trafalgar, in 1805, by 
Nelson and Collingwood, which gave the coup de grace 
to his ambitious desigus in that direction forever. 
Trafalgar Square, in London, takes its name from this 
event, and Lord Nelson, whose famous monument is 
the chief attraction of that portion of London, is justly 
looked upon as the savior of his country. Bonaparte 
had spent much time in drilling his soldiers to enter 
the transports under the enemy's fire, and was per- 
fectly satisfied of his ability to cross the channel until, 
by his failure to obey orders, coupled with a painful 
lack of decision, Villeneuve' s successor allowed Lord 
Nelson with his fleet to cut him off from Boulogne, 



126 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

and with the loss of his fleet at Trafalgar his vast 
scheme collapsed like a bubble. 

From that time forward, Napoleon was compelled to 
allow England to remain mistress of the seas, while he 
made himself the autocrat of the land. I believe there 
is a pillar there, which marks the site of the camp of the 
" Army of England," as Bonaparte exultantly called it, 
but he reckoned without his host, and the same powers, 
which by coalition prevented the invasion of England, 
also dealt Bonaparte his death blow at Waterloo. 
About the only place of note which we pass through, 
between Boulogne and Paris, is the city of Amiens, 
where the "Peace of Amiens" between France and 
England was signed in 1802. Joseph Bonaparte, 
afterwards King of Spain, and who, after the down- 
fall of the Bonaparte dynasty, came to this country, 
and lived at Bordentown, N. J., for a number of years, 
represented France ; while Lord Cornwallis, who figured 
so prominently as a brave, though unfortunate British 
general during our Revolutionary war, and whose sur- 
render at Yorktown in 1781, by the aid of the French, 
under Count Eochambeau, virtually ended the Eevo- 
lution, represented England, but the "Peace," I believe, 
only lasted about a twelvemonth. 

We arrived at Paris, at 9, p. m. having passed through 
a dreary and cheerless looking country, which, in point 
of beauty, can not compare with England, being much 
more like our Western prairie country, and I was heart- 
ily glad to get to our journey's end. We were driven at 



AT PARIS. 127 

once to our hotel, the " Splendide," which we found to 
be situated directly in front of the Grand Opera House, 
and, consequently, in the very midst of gay and lively 
Paris (which, though not 300 miles away, seems the 
antipodes of dull and gloomy London), that glori- 
ous capital which is at once, the political, scientific, 
literary, artistic, and fashionable center of Europe ; 
and as Lever says, " whose very air is the champagne 
of atmospheres, and where, amid the brilliant objects 
so lavishly thrown on every side, even the poor man 
forgets his poverty, and actually thinks he has some 
share in the gorgeous scene around him." 

"We were but a step, as it were, from the Boulevard 
des Capucines, one of the most magnificent thorough- 
fares of that superb city which the much abused Bona- 
parte regime has done so much to adorn and beautify. 
The carriages on the Northern Eailway of France are 
the handsomest and most luxurious we have yet seen 
in Europe ; and on this line 1 first beheld the novel 
sight of the "guard" walking along on the steps of 
the carriages which, of course, like the English railway 
carriages, have the steps on the sides, instead of at the 
ends, as with us, and looking in at the upper part of 
the door to punch our tickets, while the train was run- 
ning at express speed , and I thought to myself that his 
life was in the greatest peril every moment, for if he 
should find one door of the train not securely fastened 
he would be liable to be thrown off into space without 
a moment's warning or chance to save his life. I 
wondered how our American conductors would like that 



128 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

style of collecting tickets. In England your ticket, if 
you are a through passenger, is taken up by a station 
employe at the next station but one before you arrive 
at your destination, the guard having nothing to do but 
to run the train. 

*' The vine-clad hills of delisjhtful France " are no 
where to be seen between Boulogne and Paris ; in fact, 
the first we saw of them was near Fontainebleau, which 
is forty miles from Paris on the route to Geneva, and 
which is noted as the place at which Bonaparte signed 
his Abdication, in 1814, before his retirement to Elba. 
You only see, in the main, a vast extent of low, or 
marshy country, here and there covered with a piece 
of timber, and the same dingy-looking houses, with 
their red tiled roofs of which we had already seen so 
much in England. The timber in the portion of France 
through which we passed was rather scanty, and both 
in England and France we saw a great many men hay- 
making and, here and there, numbers of women were 
at work in the fields. 

On this line I noticed some two-story railway car- 
riages, which seemed as strange to me as the two-story 
tram cars which I had seen in Liverpool, but I after- 
wards took a short ride in one of them myself, in 
Switzerland, when I found them, though not nearly so 
large as our coaches, yet made on the American plan, 
all the passengers occupying one common compart- 
ment. I saw men cutting wheat with a small sickle, only 
a few minutes' ride from the city of Paris, and I noticed 
very slight indications of the use, either in England or 



PAlilS BY NIGHT. 129 

France, of the labor-saving agricultural implements 
which our " universal Yankee nation "is engaged in 
making and using, and which have, undoubtedly, put 
us in the van of all the nations of the world, in the art 
of agriculture at any rate. Not far from Paris I noticed 
the name '* St. Just " on the cover of an old wagon 
standing in a farni-yard, beside the railway, and my 
mind reverted at once to the bloody Eevolution, the 
principal theater of which I was so soon to see, 
and of which St. Just, along with Danton, Robespierre 
and Marat, was one of the leading spirits. 

After we had dined at our hotel, although it was then 
perhaps 10 p. m., I concluded to take a stroll on the 
boulevards, and get a glimpse of Paris by night. The 
Place de 1' Opera is directly in front of our hotel, and 
this beautiful square, all brilliantly lighted up, with the 
imposing Grand Opera in the background and 
thronged with thousands of handsomely dressed peo- 
ple, who turn night into day, and with hundreds of 
stylish and showy equipages, although not an " opera 
night," which is, of course, more showy still, when the 
Grand Opera House, with its myriad lights lends a daz- 
zling brilliancy to the scene, presented a spectacle un- 
usually pleasing and attractive. One of the finest 
Boulevards of Paris, the Boulevard des Capucines 
passes through the Place de 1' Opera, and I spent some 
time promenading on this splendid avenue, and wit- 
nessing the abandon and frivolity of La Vie Pari- 
sienne, which is truly sui generis, and whose 
9 



130 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

counterpart can be seen no where else in the wide 
world. The pavements are twice as wide as those of 
our largest cities, being thirtj-five feet in width, and 
the roadway in proportion, and double rows of fine 
shade trees are planted on either side of the Boule- 
vards. 

What struck me as the unique feature of La Vie 
Parisienne was the scenes presented in front of the 
numerous cafes and restaurants, which take up half 
of the pavements with their small stands and chairs 
where they serve drinks of all kinds, at all hours, to 
all sorts of people, for Paris is the magnet which at- 
tracts strangers from all quarters of the globe, and yet 
so wide are the pavements, that there is ample room 
for the immense throng of pedestrians to pass by with- 
out being incommoded in the least. 

In Brussels, I saw the same scenes enacted on a Sun- 
day afternoon ; almost in the middle of the wide street, 
the tables and chairs of a cafe having been brought clear 
off of the pavement, in order to find the shade to protect 
their numerous customers from the heat and glare of an 
August sun. In Paris they habitually turn night into 
day, so that, really, you can form hardly the faintest 
conception of La Yie Parisienne unless you have seen 
it in all its glory " under the gas light," or according 
to the modern version, " under the electric light." 
The greater part of Paris is hardly up before noon, 
for they really seem there to do nothing, but try to 
have a good time, and lead a regular dolce far niente 



A FRENCH BREAKFAST. 131 

?{/e, and at that hour the cafes are thronged, and 
business is generally dull, or has hardly commenced 
any where else. 

There I had my first experience with a French 
dejeuner^ or breakfast, and to have nothing at a first- 
class hotel but a little bread and honey, with a cup of 
cofi^ee, seemed rather a poor preparation to encounter 
the fatigues of sight-seeing, which you find, after a 
short time, is equal to a hard day's work. This is 
about all you get anywhere on the Continent, as a sub- 
stitute for the good old substantial American break- 
fast, and you have not much more at luncheon, but 
the substantial meal of the day occurs at about 5 p. m. 
or at any other convenient hour you desire to suit your 
party, and is called dejeuner a lafourchette^ and which 
consists of seven or eight dishes, and generally well 
cooked and handsomely served, but you have no coffee 
unless you pay extra, as you are expected to order wine 
instead as, of course, wine and beer in those Euro- 
pean countries are drunk more copiously than water. 

I believe, however, on that first morning in Paris, as 
we were booked for a ten-mile excursion to Versailles 
and Saint Cloud, we had a little more to eat by a spec- 
ial arrangement, having, I believe, some meat given 
us in order that we might better stand the fatigues of 
the day. About 9 o'clock our party started in large 
open wagonettes drawn by five horses, three (in the 
lead, and two at the wheel,) to see the glories of Ver- 
sailles and alas ! only the ruins of St. Cloud, which 
had fallen a prey to the shells of the Prussians in 



132 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

1871, and whose statuary, etc., in the once beautiful 
grounds was, after the city of Paris was evacuated 
by the Prussians, totally destroyed by those horrid 
wretches, the *' Communists." Versailles, would, no 
doubt, have suffered in the same way had not the fort 
of Mont St. Valerien, which played a prominent part 
in the siege of 1871, caused such havoc in the ranks of 
the Communists that they were compelled to forego 
their project, M. Thiers being, at that time at Ver- 
sailles, and that being the seat of government. 

We got a fine view of this stronghold as we were driv- 
ing along the bank of the Seine, on our return from Ver- 
sailles. On our way to Versailles, we saw several of 
the most imposing buildings of the city of Paris, the 
*' Ecole Militaire," the Trocadero Palace and Gardens, 
in which the exhibition of 1878 was held. The beau- 
tiful Tuileries gardens, and various other places of 
interest which we could not then stop to visit. 

We crossed the Seine on a magnificent bridge, and 
passed the fine equestrian statue of Henry IV., King 
of France and Navarre, which is said to stand on the 
exact spot where James de Molay, the last Grand 
Master of the Knights Templar, was burned to death 
at the stake, in the fourteenth century, after having 
suffered imprisonment and all manner of torture at 
the hands of King Philip, the Fair (but only in name), 
of France. We also stopped at the Hotel des Inva- 
lides whose gilded dome is one of the landmarks of 
Paris, in order to see the tomb of Napoleon the Great, 
but when we got there, we found that Saturday was 



StJBURBS OF PARIS. 133 

not one of the days on which we could be admitted, so 
we had to wait until the following Monday, much to 
my regret in particular, as I would rather have seen 
the tomb of Napoleon, than anything else in the city 
of Paris, but there was no help for it, and so we had 
to be patient and wait until another time. 

On the way to Versailles, which is ten miles west 
of Paris, we passed the village of Sevres, which 
is known to have been a town as far back as A. D. 
560, and is celebrated for its porcelain manufactory, 
Sevres china being famous the world over, but the 
works have lately been removed to the Park of St. 
Cloud. Versailles, before the Revolution, had 
100,000 inhabitants, but now it has dwindled away to 
30,000. While driving through the suburbs of Paris, 
we passed a school where there were a large number 
of children playing and, as soon as they saw us, they 
began to call out ^' Americainsf Atnei'icains / " and 
then they would run out into the street after us crying 
" a moi, a moi,'^ " to me, to me," and holding out 
their hands for centimes, and some of them would 
stand on their heads for us, and it was great sport to- 
see the boys scramble for the coins which we' would 
occasionally fling out amongst them. 

The grand monarch, Louis XIV., mainly made Ver- 
sailles what it is to-day, although King Louis Philippe 
spent nearly $5,000,000 in repairing the Palace in 
furniture, pictures, etc. During the siege of Paris, 
King William of Prussia had his headquarters here from 
September, 1870, to March, 1871, and in the famous 



134 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

galerie des glaces, or " Glass Gallery," the most mag- 
nificent room in the world, he was crowned emperor of 
Germany, and»here during the Commune, was the head- 
quarters of the French army, and the seat of govern- 
ment, while the red-handed Communists had unbridled 
control of the beautiful and helpless city of Paris. 
We entered the grounds of Versailles at a gate directly 
opening upon the Place d'Armes, which is a large 
space eight hundred feet broad, where the great mili- 
tary reviews were held in the days of the grand mon- 
arch, Louis XIV., from which circumstance it gets its 
name ; and thence we go into what was formerly known 
as the " Court of Ministers," but which is now known 
as the " Court of Statues," from the numerous pieces 
of statuary with which it is adorned. Among them, 
are a colossal bronze equestrian statue of Louis XIV., 
with statues of other French notabilities, — Massena, 
Conde, Richelieu, Bayard the Chevalier, ^^ sans peur 
et sans reproche," and others of distinction. 

The marble court is surrounded by the Palace on three 
sides, and from one of the balconies the death of a king 
of France was always announced by saying, " Le roi est 
mort, vive le roiy" and from another balcony the intrepid 
Marie Antoinette addressed the sans culottes of Paris, 
in 1789, when the Royal Family were removed by force 
to Paris and imprisoned in the Temple, until relieved 
from their sufferings and sorrows by the guillotine. By 
the way, it is not a little remarkable that the Empress 
Josephine was a prisoner during the Reign of Terror, 
and barely escaped the shining blade of the guillotine to 



THE HISTORICAL MUSEUM. 135 

ascend the throne, while Marie Antoinette descended 
from the throne only to ascend the guillotine. 

I noticed on the front of the two wings of the old pal- 
ace the words inscribed, " A toutes les gloires de la 
France,'^ and truly were the "glories of France" to 
be found here in the most sumptuous magnificence. 
The treasures of art and of statuary contained in this 
wonderful Palace of the ancient Kings of France, are 
well nigh immeasurable and simply indescribable. 
The Musee Historique, or Historical Museum, consists 
of only eleven large rooms which are full of pictures, 
representing the great events in the history of France, 
down to the Eevolution of 1789. I was greatly inter- 
ested in the seven rooms which are called the *' Halls 
of the Crusades," and which contain a thousand things 
of special interest to every Knight Templar. They 
are adorned with the regalia and banners of the French 
Crusaders, with pictures of many of their famous bat- 
tles, such as the Battle of Ascalon, Taking of Jerusa- 
lem, Kaising the Siege of Malta, A Chapter of the 
Templars, Godfrey de Bouillon under the Walls of 
Jerusalem, together with portraits of many Grand 
Masters of the Order, including James de Malay, Hugh 
de Pay ens, De La Valette, etc. 

In one of the rooms are to be seen the doors of the 
hospital of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, given 
by Sultan Mahmoud to Louis Philippe in 1836. Eleven 
more rooms contain pictures of celebrated French battles 
from the earliest period, this collection being called the 
*' First Gallery of the History of France," then comes 



136 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

the Gallery of Constantine, seven rooms, and the Second 
Gallery of the History of France, consisting of ten 
rooms more, containing pictures illustrating French 
history, from 1797 to 1836, thus covering the extraor- 
dinary career of Bonaparte from the campaign of 
Egypt entirely through his wondrous history of Consul 
and Emperor, and this to me was the most interesting 
portion of all the grand paintings at Versailles, and 
this is only a portion of its art riches. Of the battles 
and achievements of Napoleon alone, there are about 
three hundred paintings by the first painters of France, 
many of them by David, the great battle painter, who 
insulted Louis XVI. while a prisoner and voted for 
his death, but afer wards, nevertheless, became one of 
the most groveling and abject sycophants around the 
throne of Napoleon, and I could not help thinking 
of this while gazing upon his great pictures. 

Among the pictures are the famous Coronation of 
Napoleon and Josephine, by David, the battles of Wag- 
am, Eylau, Friedland Rivoli, Essling, Areola, Lodi, 
Marengo, Austerlitz, the Siege of Ulm, etc., etc., with 
hundreds of others of almost equal historic interest and 
of great artistic value. There are to be seen here the 
bed-rooms of many of the kings and queens of France, 
with furniture and trappings, in some cases nearly as 
they were in the days of their famous occupants, though 
generally dingy and decayed, and which were strikingly 
suggestive of the fact that princes, as well as their rich 
surroundings, can not escape the fell destroyer any 
more easily than common men. 



THE GLASS GALLERY. 137 

I was especially interested in the rooms of the un- 
fortunate Marie Antoinette, and saw many things 
used by her, among others the royal couch with her 
royal monogram upon its faded trappings. There is 
an elegant theater, and a grand Royal Chapel, also, in 
which Louis XVI., and Marie Antoinette were mar- 
ried in 1770, but which has not been used for services 
since the fall of Bonaparte. I must not omit to speak 
particularly of the Grande Galerie de Louis XIV. .» 
or Glass Gallery, which is 239 feet long, 33 feet wide 
and 23 feet high, which occupies the center of the 
west front of the Palace, with 17 windows, which look 
out upon the beautiful gardens and the grand foun- 
tains of Versailles reaching from the ceilings to the 
floor. 

What grander spot could have been chosen to cele- 
brate the unity of the German Empire, and to crown 
the Conqueror William the Emperor of Germany. It 
presented a spectacle similar to that of Cortez, the con- 
queror of Mexico, proudly taking possession of the 
halls of the haughty Montezumas; right here, too, 
where the Grand Monarch Louis XIV. had in his arro- 
gance emblazoned on the cornice of this superb salon, 
the words ie Roi gouvrne par lui meme ; "the king 
governs by himself alone," a dogma as arrogant, and 
yet equally fallacious as that promulgated by Napoleon 
in., the " nephew of his uncle," Letal, cest moi, *' I 
am the State," whose total overthrow William had Just 
accomplished two centuries later. Opposite each win- 
dow is a grand mirror, and between the windows and the 



138 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

mirrors are paintings to celebrate the glory of Louis 
XIV., by Lebrun and Mignard. 

A ball was given in this room by Louis Napoleon 
to Queen Victoria, in 1855, and they opened the 
ball together. We next looked at the grand foun- 
tain, and were sorry that we had noi been there 
on the day when they turned on the water, which 
is the first Sunday in each month, and this wonder- 
ful sight brings out thousands of people from Paris. 
The water used on that occasion involves an ex- 
pense of 10,000 francs, or about $2,000. We wound 
up our visit to Versailles with a visit to Great Tri- 
anon, which was built by Louis XIV. for his royal 
mistress, Madame de Maintenon, and Little Trianon, 
built by Louis XV. for Madame du Barry, the son 
imitating faithfully the noble example set him by his 
illustrious sire. These are counterparts of Versailles on 
a much smaller scale, of course, though quite grand in 
their way, but after seeing the great Palace you soon 
grow weary of these small affairs. 

We then visited the room which contained the royal 
carriages and sleighs, which were the most gor- 
geous things that we had yet seen, among them 
the finest of all being the state carriage of Na- 
poleon, which was truly a magnificent afPair, gilt 
all over, and profusely sprinkled with the royal " N" 
of Napoleon. On our way back to Paris we entered 
the grounds of St. Cloud, which is about seven miles 
from Paris, but there was nothing left but a pile of 
ruins to mark the spot. While waiting at the gate 



ST. CLOUD. 139 

of St. Cloud for a railway train from Versailles to 
pass, so that we could cross the railway and enter the 
park, a small body of French soldiers passed near us 
chanting their national hymn, the Marseillaise, the 
bloody inspiration of theEevolution, and of Rougetde 
Lisle, its author, and I shall never forget how the air 
thrilled me through and through. The Palace, or 
rather the remains of it, is on a high plateau above the 
Seine, and from which you obtain a fine view of Paris 
in the distance. The Palace was built in 1688 by Louis 
XIV., and presented to the Due d'Orleans, and King 
Louis XVI., afterwards purchased it for Marie Antoin- 
ette. Napoleon spent much of his time here during 
the summer, here he was married to Marie Louisa of 
Austria, in 1810, and it was here, after Waterloo, that 
Blucher had his headquarters, and the Capitulation of 
Paris was signed in the chateau. 

Not only the Palace, but the town of St. Cloud, was 
almost utterly destroyed during the siege of 1871. 
From St. Cloud, the road to Paris descends consider- 
ably, and as we approached the banks of the Seine, 
we had a grand view of the city spread out before us, 
and of which as yet we had seen but little. While 
descending to the bridge over the Seine, I noticed a 
round shot, firmly embedded in the portico of a house 
right by the roadside, which was, no doubt, a relic of 
the siege. We then passed Long Champs, the famous 
race track of Paris, which, by the way, was the scene 
in 1881 of the famous victory of Foxhall, sired by 
King Alfonso, and of course, foaled in Kentucky, 



140 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

where his owner purchased him for the insignificant 
sum of $500.00. Foxhall was the first American colt 
that ever ran in France, and he beat Tristan, a French 
colt, only by the skin of his teeth, but by so doing he 
won the grand 'prix (or grand prize), which is worth 
160,000'francs or $82,000; 

In England, subsequently, he ran a number of 
races, 9-nd no wonder his fortunate owner, Mr. Keene, 
*' thought that his colt was the greatest horse in the 
world." Alas, poor Keene! he was then worth 
$10,000,000; now he is not worth a sou — while 
making this little digression I may say that while going 
over on the City of Kome, I made the acquaintance of 
the noted Theodore Walton, the well known turfman, 
of New York, but who is better known by the appel- 
lation " Plunger." We then drove through the Bois 
de Boulogne, which is a magnificent park and covers 
2,250 acres, and,finally, found ourselves in the famous 
avenue leading from the " Bois or wood of Boulogne 
to the Arc de Triomphe, or Arch of Triumph, which is 
to Paris what Hyde Park is to London, it being filled 
at certain fashionable hours with stylish turnouts and 
handsome women. The equestrians, I believe, go to 
Bois on summer mornings, about 9 o'clock, for their 
favorite ride. 

The Arc de Triomphe de I'etoile next commands our 
attention for a few minutes, and is said to be the 
finest thing of the kind to be seen any where in 
the world. It is about two miles from the Palais 
Royal, and from its position can be seen almost all 



ARCH OF TRIUBIPH. 141 

over Paris, like the Dome of the Hotel des Invalides. 
It is culled Vetoile, or "the star," because twelve fine 
avenues radiate from this, as a common point, like the 
the spokes of a wheel. These avenues were laid out 
by Baron Haussman, the " Boss Shepherd " of Paris, 
by the orders of Napoleon III. The Arch was begun 
in 1806, by Napoleon, to commemorate his victories 
but was not finally completed until 1836, by the King 
Louis Philippe, and cost, when complete, more than 
10,000,000 francs or $2,000,000. 

It is 150 feet high, 137 feet wide, and 58 feet thick. 
It faces toward the Champs Elysees, the favorite 
promenade of Paris, and it is inscribed with the names 
of 384 French generals, and nearly 100 French vic- 
tories. The most famous bas-reliefs represent, respec- 
tively, first, the funeral of Marceau; second, the battle 
of Aboukir ; third, the Bridge of Areola, and fourth, 
the capture of Alexandria. I was told that from the top 
was to be obtained the best view to be had of Paris, but 
I did not have the time to go up. We drove from there 
through the beautiful Champs Elysees, passed the 
Place de la Concorde at the other end of the avenue, 
and arrived at our hotel about six p. m. much fatigued 
and very hungry, but highly pleased with our day's 
sight seeing. That night several of our party visited 
the magnificent Eden Theater which is not far from 
the Grand Opera House, and is one of the most beauti- 
ful theaters in Europe. There was a grand spectacular 
pantomime being exhibited called " Excelsior," I think, 
which required a large number of persons to be on the 



142 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

stage at once, frequently, and the scenery and appoint- 
ments were truly splendid. 

They have a fine cafe on each side of the auditorium, 
upstairs, where you can retire between the acts, or at 
any time, and sip your refreshing drinks to the music 
of sparkling cascades, as well as of a female orchestra 
which discourses, at intervals, the most bewitching 
airs, besides, occasionally ,dispensing their sweetest (?) 
smiles upon their interested auditors. A party of us 
visited the Grand Opera House on Monday night fol- 
lowing, and I will give a brief description of it later 
on as I have aimed, as far as practicable, heretofore, 
to describe what I have seen, as much as possible, in 
the order in which I saw it. The next day was Sunday, 
and about the first thing most of us did was to stroll 
around the corner of the Boulevard des Capucines,past 
the Grand Hotel and up to the elegant rooms of the 
American Exchange, where we registered our names, 
wrote a few letters home, looked over late American 
papers, etc., and where we were most kindly treated 
by the gentlemanly manager and his employes whose 
names, I regret to say, I am unable to give at this 
time. 

The famous Madeleine, or Church of Mary Mag- 
dalene, was next visited, and I stepped inside and 
listened to the service for a few minutes. This edifice 
dates back to 1764, in the time of Louis XV., but 
was not completed until 1842, costing two and a 
half million dollars. The carvings over the front en- 
trance are very elaborate and represent the Last Judg- 



NOTRE DAME. 143 

ment, and were designed by Lemaire, and the ponder- 
ous bronze doors are adorned with groups illustrating 
the ten commandments. The front of the Madeleine, 
with its fine Corinthian columns, is very imposing, and 
the church taken altogether is one of the finest struc- 
tures in Paris, and it barely escaped being battered to 
pieces during the sway ot the Commune of 1871. We 
next drove to the great Cathedral of Notre Dame, 
which is situated on an isle in the river Seine, called 
Notre Dame Isle, formerly Isle de la cile. 

The present structure was begun in 1160, the choir 
was completed in 1196, and the rest in 1257. Nothing 
was done after this with the building until 1700, when 
a number of alterations were made, and during the Rev- 
olution the building was most wantonly abused and was 
dedicated to the Goddess of Reason, and was called the 
Temple of Reason by the mad revolutionists. The 
west front of this noble building is indescribably beau- 
tiful. Victor Hugo, however, has depicted it with all 
his wonderful descriptive powers in his story of 
*' Notre Dame de Paris," and, of course, I shall not 
attempt it. It has a famous bell called the Bour- 
don, weighing more than thirteen tons. The interior 
is three hundred and ninety feet long, and the center 
aisle is more than one hundred feet in height. There 
are also two beautiful rose windows, thirty-six feet in 
diameter, which date back to the thirteenth century. 
Among the relics of the Cathedral, they claim to have 
two thorns from the crown of the /Savior and one of 
the genuine nails of the cross. 



144 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Services were also going on there, and the music was 
very fine. They have a custom of burning wax tapers 
before the Virgin for the repose of the soul of a dead 
friend, for good lucli, etc., and I noticed several of our 
party investing sous and centimes for these tapers, and 
having them burnt before the Virgin. The next place 
we started to see was the Louvre, as Monday in 
the picture galleries of Paris is, generally, devoted 
to cleaning up, so that was our only chance to see that 
vast collection which consists of thousands of pieces of 
statuary and acres of canvas, so after a hasty luncheon 
we hurried to the most famous and by far the most ex- 
tensive picture gallery of the world. The buildings, 
as they now stand, form a hollow square of immense 
size and extent, one wing being right on the bank of the 
Seine, and you walk from one room directly into an- 
other, all the way round the square. 

When you enter, an attendant at once takes your cane 
or umbrella so that you will not be tempted to point at 
the pictures, or statuary, and thus perchance injure them, 
and then you are ready for the vast undertaking, but 
there is such an embarrassment of riches, so much to be 
seen, and so little time to see it in, that you are utterly 
bewildered as to where to begin. You begin to look 
around and take a note of this, that, and the other 
thing until you become utterly discouraged, as I did, 
time and again, and resolved not to scribble another 
line or jot down another memorandum about anything, 
no matter what. As Virgil said of the descent to 
Avernus, hoc opus hie labor est; but we can not spare 



THE LOUVRE. 145 

any more time for moralizing, but devote ourselves at 
once to a hasty inspection of our surroundings. 

This enormous collection of works of art occupies 
nearly the whole of the building forming the Louvre 
Palace and the Louvre Gallery. A high authority on the 
subject of art says of this wondrous magazine of paint- 
ing and statuary " that, as a whole, it is perhaps the 
finest, and as regards numbers, the largest in Europe, 
although it must yield, in Italian art, to those of the 
Vatican and Florence ; in Dutch, to those of the 
Hague, Amsterdam, and Antwerp; in Roman antiqui- 
ties, to the Capital and Vatican at Rome, and to that 
of Naples ; and in Greek sculpture, to the British Mu- 
seum." Such is the extent and the size of the collection 
that merely to walk through the rooms at a leisurely 
pace would require a couple of hours, and to arrive at 
a fair conception of the most important paintings and 
pieces of statuary would require at least a month; 
but we did the best we could with the limited time at 
our disposal. 

As we entered the Louvre on the basement floor, 
we went through that first, and very hastily, be- 
cause I was impatient to get to the floors above, 
where the picture galleries were, although the ground 
floor contained the sculptures of all ages and all coun- 
tries almost, but for which I cared very little. 
The sculptures to be seen here are divided into 
five different collections which, according to the guide 
book, may be classified as follows :" ^^zVsif, ancient 
Roman and Greek Marbles ; second, Egyptian Monu- 

10 



146 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

ments, Statues, etc. ; third, Assyrian, Syrian, Phoeni- 
cian, etc. ; fourth; Mediseval and the Renaissance 
Sculpture, and fifth, Modern, that is the last three 
centuries." 

Among the most remarkable sculptures to be seen 
in the first department above named is, of course, 
the famous Venus of Milo, which is surely the 
most perfect specimen in marble of the " human form 
divine " which is to be found in the world, and which 
was discovered in the Island of Milo, in 1820, whence 
it gets its name. It is undoubtedly as near perfection 
(except that, unfortunately, its arms have been broken 
off above the elbow, but that matters not), as any 
thing upon which the eye of man has ever fallen, in the 
way of the reproduction of the human figure in the al- 
most living marble, and as I gazed at it with ever increas- 
ing interest, I thought that certainly, no human creature 
has ever been blessed with such a perfect form as 
that, and then, too, the expression of its face seemed 
to say, "I too, have a soul as well as you," and it 
looked almost as though it were inspired ; and so it 
was with the genius of the "great unknown" who 
sculptured it. 

Next in interest, perhaps, is a colossal statue 
of Melpomene, the Muse of tragic and lyric poetry, 
and in front of this fine statue is a fine Mosaic 
pavement in five compartments, the center only being 
antique, and personifying " Victory," while the other 
four are modern supplements to the ancient original, 
and represent four great rivers of Europe and Africa: 



MUSEUM OF SCULPTURE. 147 

the Po, the Danube, the Nile, and the Dnieper. In 
the Assyrian collection is to be seen a colossal vase, 
four feet in circumference which was found in Cyprus 
in 1866. In the Museum of sculpture of the Middle 
Ages, and the Renaissance (or " new birth in art" ) , is 
the celebrated group of Diane de Poitiers, the famous 
mistress of King Henry II., in which she is repre- 
sented as the Hunting Diana, by the noted artist, Ben- 
venuto Cellini. 

In the museum of modern sculpture, are to be 
seen fine busts of Madame du Barry, the mistress 
of Louis XIV., one of the famous Jean Jacques 
Eousseau, whose birthplace I afterwards saw in the 
city of Geneva, a statue of Prometheus, one of Psyche 
by the famous Pradier, and so on ad nauseam, these 
being only a very few of the thousands of the notable 
specimens of sculpture which may be seen in those 
capacious and well filled rooms. Now do you wonder 
that I was anxious to get to the splendid rooms above, 
where I afterwards found works by artists such as 
Paul Veronese, Correggio, Rembrandt, Andrea del 
Sarto, Van Dyke, Rubens (of whose famous pieces I 
actually counted thirty-seven, nearly all of them of 
the largest size), Holbein, David, Titian, Leonardo 
Da Vinci, Teniers, Quentin-Matsys, the Blacksmith- 
painter, and Lebrun, the court painter of Louis XIV., 
to say nothing of hundreds of lesser lights. Le- 
brun has four very fine paintings on a large scale, 
concerning the life and exploits of Alexander the 
Great, representing the passage of the Granicus, the 



148 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

battle of Arbela, Alexander meeting King Porus, 
and his triumphant entry into Babylon. Rubens 
has one series of twenty-two large pictures rep- 
resenting, allegorically, events in the history of 
Marie de Medicis. The ceiling of each room is fres- 
coed in the highest style of art, and you notice a gens 
d'arme at the entrance of about every other room, who 
takes care that no harm comes to these priceless treas- 
ures of art from either thoughtless or designing visi- 
tors. The 'day I was there (Sunday), the Louvre 
was crowded, and it was with difficulty that we could 
make our way through some of the rooms at all. The 
most famous pictures of the collection are to be found 
in the Salon Carre in which the gems of the Italian, 
Flemish, Spanish, and French schools are placed. 
Here is seen the largest, as well as one of the finest 
pictures in the Louvre, by Paul Veronese, represent- 
ing the marriage of Cana, and this picture is thirty- 
two feet long and twenty-one feet high. The Savior 
and the Virgin Mary appear in the center of the pict- 
ure, and the remaining figures are said to be portraits, 
among them Eleanor of Austria, near her Francis L, 
and next, Queen Mary of England, and in the fore- 
ground, the great painter, Veronese himself, playing 
on the violoncello, the picture costing about $120,000, 
the largest price any picture in the world has ever been 
known to bring. 

From this interesting place we enter the Great 
Gallery, which is 1,320 feet long and forty-two feet 
wide, and contains only the works of dead Masters, 



THE GREAT GALLERY. 149 

which was chiefly formed by Bonaparte, and is 
one of the most magnificent in the world. The pic- 
tures of the Louvre are about 1,800 in number, and 
made up as follows; Of the Italian school, there 
are about 560, 20 Spanish, 620 German, and 660 of 
the French school, so you see that they are of an 
immense variety, and embrace almost every conceiva- 
ble subject. There were, formerly five rooms known 
as the Museum of Sovereigns, three of them being 
known respectively as the chamber of Anne, of 
Austria, Bed-chamber of Henry IV., and Salon of 
Henry TV., and a few years ago were full of interest- 
ing relics of various Sovereigns, but more especially of 
the Great Napoleon ; but these mementoes are now to 
be found distributed among other museums in various 
cities of Europe. 

After the battle of Waterloo, the Louvre lost 
many of its most valuable works of art, which had 
been placed there by Bonaparte, as the spoils of 
his victorious campaigns, and taken from the finest 
galleries in Europe, where had gone his victorious 
eagles, they being restored to their original own- 
ers by the Duke of Wellington, which act the French 
looked upon with the greatest disgust, they having had 
them in their possession so long that they had begun 
to regard themselves as their legitimate owners. One 
picture in the Louvre is called, *' Lot Leaving Sodom 
Attended by Angels ;" this bears Eubens' own signa- 
ture and is apparently all done by his masterly hand, 
and his chef d'oeuvre in the Louvre, but to find 



150 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

his masterpiece, you must see his famous Descent from 
the Cross in the grand old Cathedral at Antwerp, 
of which I will speak at the proper time. 

The Louvre was formerly the Palace and residence 
of the kings of France, and from a window of the then 
palace, which, however, can not now be seen, as that 
portion of the Louvre has been destroyed, and is now 
rebuilt, the infamous Charles IX. fired upon the inno- 
cent and helpless Huguenots in the streets below, at 
the time of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, August 
24, 1572 ; and in front of the Louvre is the noted 
church of St. Germain I'Auxerrois, from which the 
fatal signal of destruction was given on that dreadful 
night, and, indeed, it is said that the bell was tolled 
during the entire night. I afterwards looked at this 
church with the greatest interest, because a near rela- 
tive of mine now deceased, who was a writer of some 
note, Miss Eliza A. Dupuy, had, among other works, 
written an interesting historical romance, called " The 
Huguenot Exiles," in which one of her ancestors, who 
was of prominent Huguenot extraction, figured as the 
hero, and who was compelled to leave France after the 
horrible massacre of St. Bartholomew. 

Besides what has been referred to, which is hardly a 
thousandth part of the riches of the Louvre, must be 
mentioned the drawings and designs of the " Old Mas- 
ters," which are the natural complement to their paint- 
ings, of which the Louvre has the finest and richest, 
and the most numerous collection in Europe, and they 
fill at least a dozen rooms, and are said to number 



WONDERS OF THE LOUVRE. 151 

about 36,000 specimens ; and among them you may see 
original sketches by Holbein, Teniers, Kubens, Van- 
dyke, Paul Veronese, Gerard and others of equal note, 
from which sketches their greatest works were after- 
wards completed. The Louvre has had several very 
narrow escapes from destruction at the hands of the 
Eevolutionary mobs of Paris, having been bravely, but 
ineffectually, defended by the Swiss guards for three 
days during the Revolution of 1830, but it seems that 
its valued contents did not suffer seriously upon that 
occasion. 

In 1871, however, the red-handed Communists set 
fire to the Louvre with the intention of erasing 
this vast treasure-house from the face of the earth; 
but luckily the library was the only portion of the 
buildings which was destroyed. The chief works of 
art had already been sent away to Brest for safety 
some time before, in anticipation of the siege by the 
Prussians, so that even had the Louvre been totally 
destroyed, there would have been yet left in France 
the nucleus of another Renaissance of art ; but, hap- 
pily, that disaster was averted by the precautions so 
wisely taken. Any further description of the Louvre 
" would tire the talkative Fabius," so I leave the sub- 
ject which has occupied a thousand abler pens than 
mine, and turn my attention to some other of the 
sights of the great city, of which so much yet remains 
to be seen in the brief time at our disposal. 



152 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 



CHAPTER VI. 



PARIS CONTINUED. 

fT was a beautiful, sunny Sabbath afternoon, and as 
by the cruel ( ! ) regulations of the authorities the 
Louvre is closed at 4 p. m. when we reluctantly took 
our departure, we strolled through the beautiful 
Champs Elysees, which is the favorite promenade of 
the gay Parisians, and which presents many singular 
phases of life to a stranger. On that broad thorough- 
fare you may see people dressed in almost every garb 
of the world, and hear a confusion of tongugs, such as 
Babel hardly equaled, see half a dozen Punch-and- 
Judy shows all going on at the same time, see nice 
little wagons drawn by goats, and filled with pretty 
and handsomely dressed children, and then the polite 
and well dressed Parisians, especially the ladies, who 
are noted the world over for their handsome figures, 
neat gloves and boots, and dresses perfectly fitting, 
and all looking as only a French woman can look, from 
the fair Parisienne, dressed in her silks and satins, to 
the maiden in the plainest attire — all this, I say, pre- 
sents a panorama of gay and careless life to be seen, 
I presume, in only one city in the world. 

I could hardly realize that this was Paris which had 
furnished the bloody orgies of the Kevolution, and the 



THE CHAMPS ELYSEES. 153 

horrid outrages of the sans culottes, when the women of 
the lower classes actually brought their knitting to the 
very foot of the scaffold, there to gloat over the misery 
of the unhappy victims, and to scream exultantly, dbas 
les aristocrats (" down with the Aristocrats "), at the 
prisoners brought in carts to the guillotine, whose only 
crime, frequently, was that of occupying a little higher 
social i)osition than their wicked persecutors. I next 
wended my way to the famous Place de la Concorde, 
which is grand and imposing at any time, but presents 
a wondrously beautiful appearance with its myriad gas 
lights after night, and where the guillotine did its 
horrible office during the Revolution, and I was cu- 
rious to see this spot which had been watered with the 
blood of all that was most exalted and noblest in the 
history of France. 

Some of the most important events in French 
history have taken place upon this truly historic 
spot. It was formerly called the Place Louis 
Quinze, from a bronze equestrian statue of Louis 
XV., which formerly stood there, but during the heat 
of the Revolution it was torn down and melted into 
cannon, and the mob changed the name to the Place 
de la Revolution, and here erected a statue of Liberty, 
to which Madame Roland alluded in her famous dying 
words on the scaffold, when she pointed toward the 
statue and exclaimed in heartrending accents, *' Oh, 
Liberty ! What crimes are committed in thy name ! " 

The guillotine was erected here, near the famous 
obelisk of Luxor, and here it is believed the lives of 



154 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

2,800 persons were taken, most of them upon the flim- 
siest pretenses. 

For a short time during the Reign of Terror in 
1793, the guillotine was removed to the Place de Car- 
rousel, but was soon after restored to its former loca- 
tion. On the occasion of the festivities connected with 
the marriage of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, in 
1770, and, as if presaging w^hat afterwards occurred to 
these royal personages on that ill-fated spot, a panic 
originated by the bursting of a rocket, caused the vast 
assemblage to push each other into the ditches, etc., 
with which the place was then filled, causing the deaths 
of 1,200 people, and seriously injuring 2,000 more, 
and from this you may form some idea of the vast 
size of the place. 

At the eastern and the western entrance of the 
place are to be seen two fine marble groups repre- 
senting fiery horses being controlled by their groom, 
near the center is a magnificent fountain, and around 
the Place, at regular intervals, are to be seen 
eight allegorical monuments, representing eight of 
the principal cities of France, and, it is said, but I 
know not how truly, that each group faces toward the 
city which it represents. The eight cities are Lille, 
whose monument was destroyed by cannon during the 
reign of the Commune, but is now restored ; Strasburg, 
which is habitually draped in mourning to typify the 
loss of that city which was held by France for 200 years 
(it having been taken from Germany by Louis XIV. ), 
and with it the province of Alsace and Lorraine ( as part 



TOMB OF NAPOLEON. 155 

of the price of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870-71), 
Bordeaux, Nantes, Marseilles, Brest, Rouen, and 
Lyons, where the Terror raged as madly, almost as 
in Paris itself. 

The obelisk of Luxor of which I have spoken, dates 
back to the time of Sesostris the Great, of whom 
Herodotus, the historian of Egypt, discourses, and 
weighs 500,000 pounds, and cost France to get it 
here and place it in position the sum of $40,000. 
It is 72 feet high, and seven feet square at the base, 
and five feet at the top, and there are said to be 1,600 
Egyptian characters traced upon it. The next morn- 
ing we took our seats in our wagonettes for the pur- 
pose of seeing all we could of Paris that day, and we 
first drove to the Mecca of all Frenchmen, as well as 
the place that interests strangers from many lands, 
need I say where? to the tomb of the great Napoleon ; 
who at thirty-six was First Consul, and at forty-six, the 
master of Europe, but who, after having tasted all hu- 
man glories, had to taste the bitterness of Waterloo, and 
to " eat his proud heart out," upon the lonely sea-girt 
rock of St. Helena, under the insulting and arrogant 
espionage of the brutal Sir Hudson Lowe, who was 
especially selected for that post because of his well 
known meanness of character, as no English gentleman 
would consent to act the part of a spy and jailer. As 
Byron says of him after « ' that first and last of 
fields" — 

"Ambition's life and labors all were vain; 

He wears the shattered links of the world's broken chain." 



156 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

The famous tomb of the Emperor is directly beneath 
the gilded dome of the Church of the Invalides, which 
is one of the landmarks of Paris, where a circular 
marble balustrade surrounds the crypt, which is 
about 20 feet below the spectator and 36 feet wide, 
who must be content with looking on from above, as 
entrance to the crypt is not allowed to visitors. Two 
e:rand staircases of marble lead down to the entrance 
of the tomb, which is marked with the royal "N " 
(Napoleon's monogram), and over the entrance are 
inscribed a few words from Napoleon's will in regard 
to the final disposition of his remains, and of which the 
following is the translation : " I desire that my ashes 
should rest upon the banks of the Seine, in the midst 
of the French people whom I have loved so well." At 
each side of the entrance to the tomb is a Corinthian 
column crowned with a funeral urn, and dedicated to 
his intimate personal friends in the days of his pros- 
perity, the Marshals Duroc and Bertrand, and who 
did not desert him in his hour of need, they having 
shared with him his exile at St. Helena. 

The light is admitted from above through colored 
glass, and the effect upon the gilded surroundings of the 
tomb is perfectly wonderful, even on a dark day, which 
was the case when I saw it, and the light falling upon 
the high altar, with its ten marble steps, and the figure of 
the Savior on the Cross above the crypt, all seemed 
bathed in indescribable glory. The sarcophagus, which 
occupies the center of the crypt, is a single block, 12 
feet long and 6 feet wide, and above this is the tomb. 



HOTEL DES INVALIDES. 157 

which is an immense piece of porphyry which weighs 
135,000 pounds, and was brought from Finland at a 
cost of $28,000, all this immense weight resting on a 
block of green granite, making the total height 13V2 
feet. The pavement of the crypt is decorated 
with a crown of laurels, in mosaic, and within this, in a 
black circle, are the names of some of Napoleon's great- 
est victories. These are Rivoli, Marengo, Austerlitz, 
Jena, Friedland, and others. Twelve statues face the 
tomb, each representing some victory of the illustrious 
dead. The whole expense connected with the transfer 
of the remains of Napoleon from St. Helena in 1842, 
and rearing this costly and magnificent memorial of 
the idol of France, was something like $2,000,000. • 
The mortal remains of Bonaparte were deposited in 
the sarcophagus with befitting ceremonies on April 2, 
1861. 

The hotel of the Invalides, proper, covers an area 
of 16 acres, and has about 18 different courts and 
can accommodate 5,000 invalids or veterans, but it has 
generally only about 700. The Church of St. Lojiis 
(the Chapel of Invalides), is said to be the master- 
piece of its architect, and is one of the most conspicu- 
ous ornaments of Paris. In the days of Napoleon, this 
chapel was decorated with 3,000 flags taken in battle, 
and others were hung up in the chapel, but nearly all 
of them were burned by order of Joseph Bonaparte, 
just before the Allies entered Paris in 1814. There 
are, however, a few torn and battle-scarred flags left in 
the chapel yet. I saw and talked (briefly of course), 



158 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

with several old soldiers who told me in their intensely 
Frenchy dramatic way, in answer to my inquiries 
addressed to them in stammering French, without the 
accent( ?), that they had belonged to the Grand Army, 
and whose eyes sparkled with pride, and who drew 
themselves proudly up to their full height, when I 
mentioned the revered name of Bonaparte. 

Near the tomb of Napoleon are the remains of his 
brother. King Joseph of Spain, and the great Vauban, 
the famous engineer of Louis XIV., also Marshal 
Ttirenne and King Jerome Napoleon of Westphalia, 
who, when a young man married Miss Patterson of 
Baltimore, but whose marriage, at the instance of Na- 
'poleon, was annulled by the Pope. Bonaparte had this 
marriage annulled for reasons of state (though it is 
said much against the will of his brother Jerome, who 
fell desperately in love with Miss Patterson early in 
the century while erasing in a French man-of-war, 
which anchored for some time at Baltimore), because 
he desired his brother Jerome to form a matrimonial 
alliance with some of the monarchs of Europe, and 
thus strengthen the Napoleon dynasty, and so Jerome 
was forced to yield to the iron will of Bonaparte, and 
give up his young and lovely bride, as a reluctant sac- 
rifice on the altar of ambition. 

It is said that Madame Bonaparte, while visit- 
ing Italy afterwards saw Jerome, then the King 
of Westphalia, and his queen in a picture gallery 
in Florence, and that he apparently seemed to re- 
cognize his deserted wife, and it is not a little re- 



THE COLUMN OF JULY. 159 

markable that she lived to survive the last remnant of 
the dynasty of Napoleon (for whose selfish aggrandize- 
ment she was, like the Empress Josephine, herself, after- 
wards so cruelly and remorselessly set aside), in the 
person of Napoleon III., whose star forever set, in 
1870, she dying onl}^ very recently, a fact which goes 
far to prove the truth of the old saying, that " time 
makes all things even." We next drove past the Porte 
St. Denis and the Porte St. Martin, on our way to see 
the Place de la Bastile, which is, of course, another of 
the historic spots of Paris, and the monument there 
which is called the Column of July, commemorates the 
site of the famous Bastile, which was razed to the 
ground during the Revolution. 

The Porte St. Denis is much grander in size and 
beauty than the Porte St. Martin, and was origin- 
ally built to celebrate the victories of Louis XIV. 
(who like Napoleon, was fond of setting up monu- 
ments of his achievements, but unlike him, was rarely 
seen on the field of battle, rather preferring to leave 
the issue of his campaigns to his great marshals 
and engineers), and at that time forming one of 
the gates of Paris, as the walls then ran along the 
present Boulevards. It is seventy-six feet high, and 
the principal arch is forty-five feet high, and twenty- 
six feet wide. The bas-relief above the arch represents 
Louis XIV. crossing the Ehine. Both these arches 
have figured in the various revolutions of Paris, as 
they afforded strongholds for the insurgents, and in 
1830 and 1848 especially. The Bastile was attacked 



160 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

by a mob 50,000 strong, with twenty cannon which 
they had taken from the Invalides on July 14, 
1789, but as the garrison only consisted of thirty-two 
Swiss and eighty pensioners, they could not long re- 
sist such overwhelming odds, as they had not nearly 
force enough to man the walls. The Bastile fell and 
De Launay, the governor, was beheaded, most of the 
garrison murdered, and the head of De Launay stuck 
on the bayonet. 

In spite of the popular belief that the dungeons 
of the Bastile were full of prisoners who were unlaw- 
fully detained of their liberty, only seven prisoners 
were found in the fortress. It is supposed that the 
fortress was stormed, because its guns commanded 
the Faubourg St. Antoine, which was at that time 
the home of the workingmen of Paris particularly, 
and of course a perfect hot-bed of sedition. The next 
year the Bastile was demolished by the decree of the 
National Assembly, and part of its debris used in con- 
constructing the I^ont de la Concorde. The column is 
one hundred and fifty-four feet high, and entirely of 
bronze, and has some finely carved lines around it. 
The genius of Liberty surmounts the column, in her 
right hand a torch and in her left a broken chain ; she 
stands on one foot, with wings expanded as though 
about to soar away into the vast expanse of ether. 
We then went on to the famous cemetery of PeVe la 
Chaise, which contains about 20,000 graves, and 
among them some of the most eminent names of France 
and especially of the present century. 



PERE LA CHAISE. 161 

The place derives its name from La Chaise, the con- 
fessor of Louis XIV., and covers over two hundred 
acres. Yqu have hardly gotten inside of the enclos- 
ure before you begin to see wreaths of immortelles, 
some of them, of course, being genuine flowers, in 
great profusion on most of the tombs which you see 
around you. I had heard so much of these immor- 
telles, that I was curious to examine them, and I did so 
and found that many of them were not made of 
flowers at all, these being on the graves of persons I 
persume whose friends and relatives could not afford 
the expense of genuine immortelles, but that they were 
made out of fine wire, in imitation of the genuine im- 
mortelles, of a peculiar tint, which made them look 
somewhat as though they were made of flowers. 

No wonder that they called them immortelles, for I 
can see no reason why they should not last almost for- 
ever, and, so in France, you can decorate the graves 
of your dear departed at very slight expense by the 
.use of these immortelles, which seem to be in that 
country the national decoration. About fifty inter- 
ments per day take place bere and two-thirds of 
these are in large ditches (called /bsses communes, ov 
" common ditches,") where a large number of coffins 
are laid side by side, and in rows of three or four 
deep, all of which are then covered over with dirt. 
The charge for this, unless the dead person was an ab- 
solute pauper, is about twenty francs, or $4, and they 
usually erect near the spot a small wooden cross and 
railing, which cost very little, and then perhaps plant 
11 



162 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

a few flowers. After the lapse of five years, all these 
railings and crosses about the fosses communes (or 
promiscuous interments), are taken up, and the 
materials given to the hospitals for fuel. 

They have another class of graves called the fosses 
temporaires (or temporary ditches), where for the sum 
of about fifty francs, or $10, the dead can be allowed a 
separate grave and may rest in peace for the space of ten 
years, or for a " ground rent," in this case, of about $1 
per year. In the latter case, each grave has a little rail- 
ing, a garden, and a cross or chapel; ofcourse, the ground 
for the most expensive tombs is purchased outright. 
On many of the cheaper tombs you will see the words 
priez pour^ moimriez pour elle, priez pour lui (" pray 
for me," " pray for her," " pray for him, " ) or where 
there is more than one in a tomb or grave, as often hap- 
pens, as has been indicated above, you will see the words 
priezpoureux^ " pray for them," which is the way they 
have in France of asking for the prayers of the living 
who pass by these tombs on behalf of the dear de- 
parted. In this country they have a custom of visit- 
ing the tombs of their relatives and friends continually 
to pray by them, and hang up garlands of immortelles. 

On All Soul's Day, which is the 2d of November, the 
cemetery is crowded by persons who desire to pray for 
the repose of the souls of their dear deceased friends 
and relatives, and then a visitor beholds the sad side of 
Parisian life, as contradistinguished from the careless 
levity he usually sees on the Boulevards, and in the 
cafe and theater. The cemetery of Pere la Chaise, 



** IMMORTELLES.'* 163 

however famous as it is in point of neatness and 
general appearance, forms a painful contrast to such 
a beautiful city of the dead as Mt. Auburn (near 
Boston), and is far inferior to the Spring Grove 
Cemetery, near Cincinnati. Most of the ground, 
especially the old part of the cemetery, is rough and 
ill kept, and affords no such wealth of green sward, 
smooth gravelled walks and fine and capacious drives, 
as we are accustomed to see in the well cared for ceme- 
teries of our largest American cities, or indeed, in the 
cemeteries of some much smaller cities which might be 
named. 

This cemetery, being located on elevated ground, 
which gives it the command of many parts of the 
city of Paris, has figured as a military stronghold 
more than once in this famous city of sieges, capitula- 
tions and revolutions. When the armies of the Allies 
who had combined to crush Bonaparte in 1814, ad- 
vanced on Paris and besieged the city, this cemetery 
was obstinately defended against three charges before 
it was captured by the Kussians, and then they bivou- 
acked in the cemetery, and cut down a great many of 
the trees for fuel. Again, during the Commune^ in 
May, 1871, this was their last stronghold, and from 
this point they rained upon the devoted city of Paris 
shells loaded with petroleum which, of course, caused 
tremendous loss of life and property in the city which 
had already suffered so severely at the hands of the 
Prussians during a siege protracted for about six 
months. 



164 A KNIGHT TEIVIPLAR ABROAD. 

As the results of this reign of Anarchy are to 
found here two huge graves which contain about a 
thousand of the deluded, misguided wretches who died 
"unwept, unhonored, and unsung," in the midst of 
their atrocities, and whose corpses were piled together 
" in one red burial blent" between layers of quick- 
lime. Quite a contrast to this is presented by the 
handsome monument which is to be seen here, erected 
to the memory of 2,000 French soldiers who f^U while 
fighting nobly during the siege in defense of La Belle 
France, unlike the wretches above alluded to who died 
ignobly, while attempting wantonly to throttle the 
liberties of their native country, and to destroy the 
grandest monuments of her glory. The pedestal is 
adorned with sculptured wreathes of flowers and oak 
leaves, and at each corner of the monument is a sol- 
dier-like figure, one representing a soldier of the line? 
a marine, an artilleryman, and a garde mobile, and 
all appropriately inscribed. 

Near the main entrance, you are taken to the 
Jewish portion of the cemetery, where you see the 
tomb of Eachel, the great tragic actress, and there 
yoti see the name of Eothschild, which is such a 
tower of strength in the commercial and financial 
world. Not far from there is the famous tomb of 
Ahelard and Heloise, which Mark Twain has so 
humorously described in his "Innocents Abroad." 
Abelard died in 1142, but Eloise pined away 
for some twenty-two years longer before she 
" shuffled off this mortal coil." This monument 



DISTINGUISHED DEAD. 165 

has a rather neglected look, but on account of 
the romance connected with the famous dead will 
always be an object of interest to visitors. 
Abehird and Heloise are resting, side by side, on top 
of the sarcophagus, which is surrounded by a Gothic 
chapel open on the four sides, but the tomb is sur- 
rounded by a railing. 

In the avenue of Acacias, we saw the tomb of 
M. Thiers, the French statesman, and first Presi- 
dent of the existing Republic, which was plain and 
unassuming. I was especially anxious to find the 
tomb of Marshal Ney, the " bravest of the brave," 
who went over to Napoleon, " his old Commander," 
after his return from Elba, with part of his army, 
after swearing fidelity to the Bourbons, kissing the 
hand of King Louis XVIII., tendering his services 
and promising to bring the Great Napoleon in a 
cage to Paris, either dead or alive. Alas ! brave, and 
yet weak man, I have often thought how great a pity 
it was that this hero of a hundred battles could not 
have lost his life at Waterloo, where he had five horses 
shot under him, and yet receiving scarcely a scratch 
himself, instead of surviving that dire encounter to be 
shot like a dog in the Luxembourg Gardens, only a 
few months later, and to sleep in Pere La Chaise with- 
out even a stone to mark the last resting place of the 
chivalrous and gallant man who could not resist the 
magnetism of Napoleon, whose eagles had owed not a 
little of their military glory to the leadership of this 
foremost of the Marshals of France, and of whom 



166 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Napoleon himself once said that he was worth 6,000 
men. 

I was anxious for another reason to see the grave 
of Ney, which was this : There is a tradition connected 
with the history of this hero, which makes him a native 
of America, and a soldier of our Revolution, but 
who afterwards " a soldier of fortune," enlisted under 
the eagles of Napoleon, and with his good broad 
sword carved his pathway to fame, and this tradition 
formed the groundwork of a historical romance of in- 
tense interest, because of its connection with the 
career of Napoleon, which was written by my relative. 
Miss Dupuy, who has been referred to above, and in 
which story Ney figures under the name of Michael 
Eudolph. Our guide, however, did not seem to know 
exactly where it was situated, and as it had com- 
menced raining, I was compelled to forego that pleas- 
ure, and will finish this brief and imperfect sketch of 
this famous city of the dead, with a reference to some 
of the illustrious persons who lie buried here. 

Many of the most famous of the Marshals of France 
lie here, among them McDonald, who made the famous 
charge at Wagram, where out of a division of 16,000 
men, he came out with only 1,500 fit for duty, and 
which won him his marshal's 6a!^o?«,Kellerman, Suchet, 
Massena, Davoust, Gen. Gouvion St. Cyr, Baron 
Larrey, the surgeon of Napoleon, Moliere and La 
Fontaine, the famous authors, Emanuel Godoy, the 
infamous Prince of Peace, De Seze, the courageous 
and undaunted advocate who defended Louis XVI. 



THE PANTHEON. 167 

before the Convention, at the imminent peril of his life, 
and which noble and disinterested act, I believe, later 
on resulted in his death by the guillotine, La Place and 
Arago, the famous astronomers. Talma, the unrivalled 
actor, and hundreds of others, noted in various walks 
of life. While coming from the Place de la Bastille 
to Pere La Chaise, we passed the Prison de la Koquette, 
where are kept juvenile offenders, and where con- 
demned felons are imprisoned while awaiting execu- 
tion. 

In front of these prisons the guillotine is erected 
whenever an execution takes place, which is generally 
from four to six a. m. Here during the last days of 
the Commune in May, 1871, Archbishop Darboy and 
five priests, thirty-seven other prisoners and sixty-six 
gens d'artnes were murdered in cold blood by the hid- 
eous wretches who outdid the sans culottes of the Reign 
of Terror, almost, in their fiendish cruelty. There 
are many more places of interest in this beautiful city 
which we would like to visit, many beautiful churches 
and historic spots which we would like to describe, but 
time, and the projected limits of this faint attempt to 
outline the chief features of our route of travel, forbid 
that we shall do so, but there are a very few more to 
which we will give time and space, at any rate, for a 
passing notice. 

Our party next were driven to the Pantheon, or 
«' Temple of all the Gods," which is one of the most 
remarkable buildings in the city of Paris, and 
which is rich in historic associations. This church 



168 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

is also called the Church of St. Genevieve, and is truly 
a magnificent building, three hundred and fifty feet 
long, and two hundred and sixty wide, and it has 
three rows of fine Corinthian columns to support the 
grand portico. Upon the front is to be seen in very 
large letters an inscription, the translation of which is, 
"Our country recognizing her great men," and the 
sculpture in the pediment above the portico contains 
the statues of many of the illustrious citizens of 
France. Among them are Mirabeau, who befriended 
Marie Antoinette, but who died before the Eevolution 
was accomplished ; Voltaire, Eousseau, Lafayette, 
David, the painter, and others. The day we were 
there services were going on, it being Sunday, and the 
fat priest in the pulpit seemed to be making gestures 
continually, which I presume is the usual style of 
French oratory. 

I also noticed a woman sitting at the entrance to 
the chapel, which was separated from the rest of 
the church by a railing, who received some money 
from each person who entered while our party 
were there, and I afterwards learned that where you 
had a seat in any Catholic place of worship in the city 
of Paris that you were charged a few centimes or sous 
for it. We next descended to the vaults of the church, 
some of which are so dark that our guide had to light 
his lantern for us, in order that we might be able to 
see how to get around. We saw there the memorial 
tombs of Rousseau and Voltaire who, however, are not 
buried there, though Mirabeau and Marat were, though 



MIEABEAU AND MARAT. 169 

the two latter afterwards were depantlieonized by the 
National Convention. The body of the wretch Marat, 
who called himself during the Revolution the " friend 
of the people," and who up to the very moment of his 
death Avas clamoring constantly for more blood, was 
pitched into a common sewer, fitting resting place for 
him, blood-thirsty villain that he was, and the world 
owes Charlotte Corday a vote of thanks for having 
rid it of such a monster, and there can be no doubt 
that she felt an inspiration from Heaven to immolate 
herself upon the altar, that the flow of blood in 
France might be the sooner stopped, and so it was. 
On the tomb of Rousseau is an inscription which says : 
"Here reposes the man of Nature and of Truth," 
whom Byron calls — 

'* The self -torturing SopMst, wild Eousseau, . 
Tlie apostle of aftliction, he who threw 
Enchantment over passion, and. from woe 
Wrung overwhelming eloquence." 

Here also is to be seen 2i facsimile of the Pantheon, 
made of marble, on the scale of one to twenty-five, and 
in these vaults a most wonderful echo is to be heard, 
which is really startling in its intensity. We then drove 
to Notre Dame Isle to see the Cathedral once more, 
which has already been spoken of, and then the Morgue, 
which is hard by the Cathedral, was also visited. There 
is hardly a morning when the body of some unfortu- 
nate, taken from the Seine, or found dead in the streets, 
is not to be seen there for the purpose of being recog- 
nized by the friends or relatives of the deceased, and 



170 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

they are exposed, naked above the waist, on marble 
slabs, for three days, beneath jets of water, but for a 
wonder there was no one exposed that morning, which 
I was rather glad of than otherwise. All the dead are 
photographed with all their gaping, hideous wounds 
when they have died by violence or just as they may 
appear when brought to the Morgue for recognition, and 
these are placed in frames that, perchance, the origi- 
nal may be recognized even after they are buried, 
when they may then be identified and reinterred in ac- 
cordance with the wishes of their relatives. 

We sawseveral hundred of these photographs, some of 
the mrepulsive and horrible to the last degree, and you 
may imagine that they were not pleasant to look upon. 
There was not much of a crowd there that day I sup- 
pose as there was not the usual ghastly display to be 
seen and so the lovers of the horrible had nothing to 
feast their eyes upon, as is most generally the case 
in the summer months, as the number of exposed 
corpses is usually the largest at that season of the year. 
By the way, while strolling with a friend one evening 
along the Boulevard des Capucines, it occurred to me 
that, as T had frequently ridden in a Broadway 'bus in 
New York, and had also seen much of London from 
the top of a 'bus, that I would also like to ride on a 
Paris 'bus and see what I could see, so I proceeded at 
once to put my design into execution, as I thought. 

Accordingly, I threw up my hand as I should have 
done in New York or London and cried out " /c^, ici, 
monsieur, here, here, sir," to the first 'bus driver, who 



THE TEMPLE. . 171 

came along, but to my surprise he only shrugged his 
shoulders and grinned a little as I imagined, as much as 
to say, I thought (when I learned, a little later on, why 
it was that he had not stopped for us ) , * ' that is a blank- 
ety-blank-greenhorn." Well, I tried one or two more 
conducteurs with the same success, and had about con- 
cluded to give up the project, when, by this time, we 
had reached a place where two or three 'buses were 
standing in a row, and a lot of people were buying 
tickets at a little box-office on the sidewalk. I also 
noticed that the conductor called off numbers, and the 
person who held the number which the conductor called 
off then got into the 'bus, and as soon as it contained 
so many passengers, then the 'bus would drive off, 
and the same process would be repeated with the next 
bus. I bought me a ticket, too, and waited for some 
time for my number to be called, but as dark was fast 
coming on, I had to relinquish my design of looking at 
Paris from the top of a 'bus. 

So in that country it would seem that there is 
not always room for one more in an omnibiis, as 
seems to be the understanding with us. These 'buses 
only run on certain boulevards, and to persons 
who wish to go to certain streets at right-angles 
with the particular street on which they are trav- 
eling, they give another ticket which is called a cor- 
respondence or transfer. There was one more place 
of interest which I desired particularly to see, and this 
was the Temple, or " clothes market" ("to such base 
complexion are we come at last ") which from once 



172 -A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

having been the site of the ancient stronghold of one of 
the Knights Templars of France, and the scene of many- 
important events in French history, and which was 
standing in all its ancient majesty and glory a century 
ago, has actually been reduced to being the chief place 
in Paris for the sale of " old clothes " at the hands of 
eager Israelites " in whom," " as usual," " there is no 
guile. "(?) Alas! 

" The Knights are dust, 
Their swords are rust, 
Their souls are with the saints we trust." 

But, nevertheless, a short historical sketch of this 
ancient stronghold of the Order may not be without its 
interest to Knights Templars of the present day. 

The Temple, which was built in 1222, was an ancient 
fortress and prison and formerly occupied the Boul- 
evard du Temple and the Rue du Temple, but of which 
nothing now remains. It was one of the two cora- 
manderies of the Knights Templar at Paris in the 
thirteenth century, and was as large and important a 
feudal- fortress as the Louvre. Kings resided there, 
and the treasures of the crown were often deposited 
there. In 1312 the Order of Templars was suppressed 
and its members burned at the stake, hanged, or dis- 
persed with the greatest cruelty, under Philip of Yalois. 
Whether they were guilty of the crimes, irregularities, 
and conspiracies imputed to them is still a matter of 
dispute, but of this matter we shall speak further on. 

The Temple was then granted to the Knights of St. 
John, who afterwards became the Knights of Malta. 



ANCIENT STRONGHOLD. 173 

A century ago, a great part of the Temple was stand- 
ing, surrounded by walls and defended by towers. 
The church was circular, like that in the Temple at 
London, and whence Temple Bar takes its name. 
The Tower, a square and gloomy mass, flanked by 
four round limits at the angles, was the prison in which 
the unfortunate Louis XVI., with his queen, Marie 
Antoinette, his son, the Dauphin, and his daughter, 
afterwards the Duchess d ' Angouleme, and his sis- 
ter, Madame Elizabeth, were confined from the 13th of 
August, 1792, under circumstances of incredible 
cruelty, privation, and insult. 

The King perished on the scaffold January 21st, 
1793, the Queen was sent to the Conciergerie on 
August 2d, 1793, and died on the scaffold in the 
following October, while Madame Elizabeth was 
executed on May, the 10th, 1794. The unhappy 
Dauphin, the heir to the haughty throne of the 
Bourbons, was detained in this prison until his death 
on the 8th of June, 1795, at which time he was not yet 
eleven years old. His sister was the only one of the 
Royal Family who escaped thescafi*old, being saved in 
some inexplicable manner by the intervention of 
powerful friends. The Dauphin was at first given to 
the charge of a cobbler named Simon, a cruel and 
utterly- depraved wretch, and his wife, by whom he 
was treated with every. kind of indignity and cruelty, 
and who tried, in every way, to corrupt and deprave 
him. He was afterwards kept in solitary confinement 
with deficient food and total neglect, and it is actually 



174 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

said that, for a period of two years, the poor child was 
not allowed a change of bedding or of clothing. He 
finally died in this prison of filth and misery on the 
8th of June, 1795, and was buried in the church-yard 
of St. Margaret, in the Faubourg St. Antoine. 

The tower was used as a prison subsequently, and Sir 
Sidney Smith, the hero of the siege of Acre, and who is 
buried in Pere la Chaise, and Toussaint 1 ' Ouverture, 
the Emperor of St. Domingo, captured at the French 
occupation of that isle, Moreau, the hero of the 
Rhine, and Pichegru, the conqueror of Holland, were 
prisoners there. The tower was pulled down in 1811, 
and the site built over, as alluded to above. The hotel 
of the Grand Prior of the Order was built in the sev- 
enteenth century, and in 1814 Louis XVIII. gave it to 
the Princess of Conti to establish in it a convent of 
Benedictine nuns who were to pray continually for 
France. In 1848 the nuns were expelled, and the 
building seized by the government. In 1854 it was 
entirely pulled down, and the space laid out in the 
present handsome square and garden. M. Lamartine, 
the author of the history of the Girondists, gives the 
only description, so far as I know, which can be found 
in modern literature of the famous Temple in Paris, 
and, with the hope that the subject will at least interest 
every Knight Templar, though at the risk of making 
the sketch too long, perhaps, we again quote from the 
historian. He describes it as it appeared nearly a 
hundred years ago, at the period of the French Revo- 
lution. 



HISTORY or THE TEMPLE. 175 

The Temple was an ancient and dismal fortress built 
by the Monastic order of Templars, at the time when 
sacerdotal and military theocracies, uniting in revolt 
against princes with tyranny toward the people, con- 
structed for themselves forts for monasteries, and 
marched to dominion by the double force of the cross 
and the sword. After their fall, their fortified dwelling 
had remained standing as a wreck of past times, neg- 
lected by the present. The chateau of the temple was 
situated near the Faubourg St. Antoine, not far from 
the Bastile ; it, with its buildings, its palace, its towers, 
and its gardens constituted a vast space of solitude and 
silence in the center of a most densely populated quar- 
ter. The buildings were composed of a prieure or 
palace of the Order, the apartments of which served 
as an occasional dwelling for the Compte d'Artois, 
when that prince came from Versailles to Paris. 

This dilapidated palace contained apartments, furn- 
ished with some ancient movables, beds, and linen for 
the suite of the prince. A porter and his family were 
its only hosts. A garden surrounded it, as empty 
and neglected as the palace. At some steps from 
the dwelling, was the donjon of the chateau, once 
the fortification of the Temple. Its abrupt dark 
mass rose on a simple spot of ground toward 
the sky; two square towers, the one larger the 
other smaller, were united to each other like a mass of 
walls, each one having at its flank other small sus- 
pended towers, in former days crowned with battle- 
ments at their extremity, and these formed the 



176 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

principal^group of this construction. Some low and 
more modern buildings abutted upon it, and seemed, 
by disappearing in its shade, to raise its height. 

This donjon and tower were constructed with large 
stones cut in Paris, the excoriations and cicatrices of 
which marbled the walls with yellow, livid spots upon 
the black ground, which the rain and smoke incrust upon 
the large buildings of the north of France. The large 
tower, almost as high as the towers of a cathedral, was 
not less than 60 feet from the base to the top. It en- 
closed within its four walls a space of 30 square feet. 
An enormous pile of masonry occupied the center of 
the tower, and rose almost to the point of the edifice. 
This pile, larger and wider at each story, leaned its 
arches upon the exterior walls, and formed four suc- 
cessive arched roofs, which contained four guard 
rooms. 

These halls communicated with other hidden and 
more narrow places cut in the towers. The walls of the 
edifice were nine feet thick. The embrasures of the 
few windows which lighted it, very large at the 
entrance of the hall, sunk as they became narrow, 
even to the cross work of stone, and left only a feeble 
and remote light to penetrate into the interior. Bars 
of iron darkened these apartments still further. Two 
doors, one of double oak wood, very thick, and studded 
with very large diamond headed nails ; the other 
plated with iron, and fortified with bars of the 
same metal, divided each hall from the stair by which 
one ascends to it. This winding staircase rose in a 



HISTORY OF THE TEMPLE. 177 

spiral form to the platform of the edifice. Seven suc- 
cessive wickets, or seven solid doors, shut by bolt and 
key, were ranged from landing to landing, from the 
base to the terrace. An exterior gallery crowned the 
summit of the Donjon. One here made ten steps at 
one turn. The least breath of air howled there like a 
tempest. The noises of Paris inounted there, weaken- 
ing as they came. 
*** ** ***** 

The small tower stood with its back to the large 
one. It had also two little towers upon each of its 
flanks. It was equalJy square and divided into four 
stories. No interior communication existed between 
these two continuous edifices ; each had its separate 
staircase ; an open platform crowned this tower, in 
place of a roof, as on the donjon. 
*** ******* 

The low arched doors, whose freestone mouldings 
represented a bundle of pillars surmounted by broken 
escutcheons of the Temple, led to the vestibules of 
these two towers. Large alleys paved with flagstone 
surrounded the building ; these were separated by 
barriers of planks. The garden was overgrown by 
vegetation; thick with coarse herbs and choked by 
heaps of stone and gravel, the relics of demolished 
buildings. A high and dull wall, like that of a cloister 
made the place still more gloomy. This wall had only 
one outlet, at the extremity of a long alley on the 
Vieille Rue da Temple. Such were the exterior 
aspect and interior disposition of this abode, when the 

12 



178 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

owners of the Tuileries, Versailles, and Fontainebleau, 
(the historian, of course, alludes to the famous prison- 
ers of the Temple, King Louis XVI., and his Queen, 
Marie Antionette), arrived at nightfall. These de- 
serted halls no longer expected tenants since the Temp- 
lars had left them, to go to the funeral pile of Jacques 
Malay. These pyramidal towers empty, cold, and 
mute for so many ages, more resembled the chambers 
of a pyramid in the sepulchre of aPharoah of the west 
than a residence. 

This much for M. Lamartine's pen picture of the 
temple, and we leave for the next chapter some ac- 
count of the overthrow of the Order in France. 



CHAPTER VII. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE OVEETHROW (NOT EX- 
TERMINATION), OE THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR. 

tHE following historical sketch of the causes 
which led to the overthrow (though, not by any 
means, annihilation), of the Order of Knights Tem- 
plars in France, in the fourteenth century, and the ac- 
companying description of the scenes of thrilling 
interest, and of horrible cruelty, which attended their 
downfall, as the result of a nefarious and blood-cur- 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 179 

dling conspiracy which, if historians are to be believed 
at all, was entered into between Philip le Bel, or 
Philip the Fair, King of France, and Bertrand de Got, 
Archbishop of Bordeaux, in the year 1305, has been 
revised and condensed from " A historical Sketch of 
the Last Days of the Templars," by the well known 
writer G. P. K. James. We shall make no apology 
for its length, but rely for its kind reception upon the 
historical authenticity of the statements contained 
herein, in addition to the supposed interest which every 
Templar has, or should have, in anything well authen- 
ticated concerning that chivalric Order, so without 
further delay we will proceed in medias res at once. 
***** ** *** 

The fatal battle of Tiberiad, and the fall of Jerusa- 
lem, before the victorious arms of Saladin, terminated 
the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem, founded by God- 
frey of Bouillon. True, the Franks continued to hold 
for some years various strong places in the Holy 
Land. True, the mighty arm of Kichard Coeur de 
Lion brought temporary hope, and a brief prospect 
of success, to the defeated and disheartened Christians 
of Syria ; true, Henry of Champagne, Almaric, and 
Isabella and others after their death, called themselves 
sovereigns of Jerusalem ; but they never possessed 
one stone of the Holy City ; nor were they nor their 
followers permitted to set a foot within its walls, ex- 
cept by permission of the victorious Moslem. 

Vice, luxury, and idleness had taken possession of the 
descendants of the early Crusaders; and the sole bul- 



180 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

warks of the Christian power were the two great 
Orders of the Temple and Hospital. Often rivals, 
often enemies, these bodies of military monks were 
rarely found wanting in harmony and zeal at the 
moment of danger and distress; and the misfortunes 
which fell upon the Christian kingdom after the re- 
turn of Richard I, to England, united them in defense 
of the little which remained of all the fair possessions 
which had been won from the infidels. An effort was 
made shortly after to rouse the spirit of European 
nations to a new Crusade. Theobald Yisconti, Arch- 
deacon of Liege, had dwelt in the Holy Land, had 
witnessed the miseries of the Christians, and had be- 
come deeply interested in the recovery of Jerusalem. 
He was still at Acre, when he was raised to the 
Papal throne ; and his first efforts, on his return to 
Europe, were directed to raise forces for the great 
object of his heart. A general council was summoned 
to meet at Lyons, in May, 1274, and the Grand Mas- 
ters of the Temple and the Hospital attended, to advo- 
cate the cause of the Syrian Christians. Monarchs and 
princes gave their aid ; Rudolph of Hapsburg, Philip 
of France, Michael Palaeologus, Charles of Anjou and 
Sicily, with many another noble name, took part in 
the movement; and every thing promised fair, when, 
after a short period of rule, Gregory X., was removed 
by death from the scene of his exertions, and the 
trumpet of the Crusades ceased to sound in Europe. 
Disappointed and desponding, the Grand Master of 
the Temple, William de Beau-Jeu returned to Palestine. 



WILLIAM DE BEAU-JEU. 181 

He took with him, it is true, a gallant band of 
Knights of his own order, sent by the various Temple 
Houses in England and France ; but he found Acre, 
now the capital of the Christian power in the Holy- 
Land, one scene of confusion, contest, and vice. 
Nevertheless, the resolution of the Grand Master 
remained unshaken; but it was all in vain that he 
endeavored to inspire the same spirit into the breasts 
of others; and all aid, but that of a few Italian free 
companions, was refused by Europe to the petition of 
the Syrian Christians. Negotiations with the infidel, 
and gradual encroachments upon the Christian terri- 
tory, filled up a considerable space of time, during 
which a nominal peace existed. The walls of Acre, 
t-'l^paired by Richard, had been strengthened at various 
times since his death, and consisted of a double ram- 
part, with immense towers at intervals of a stone's 
throw. 

Within the walls were four fortified buildings, which 
might be considered as citadels, though the real cita- 
del, or castle, was called the King's Tower. The 
other three consisted of the house or convent of the 
Knights Templars, the strongest and most important of 
all, capable of containing several thousand men, and 
furnished with immense and well constructed defenses, 
the Convent of the Hospitalers and that of the Teu- 
tonic Knights. The sea washed the walls of the city 
on one side ; and an artificial port with fortifications 
for its protection, completed the defenses of the place. 
Toward the sea, however, the wall was single; but on 



182 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

the land side no means had been left unemployed to 
strengthen the fortifications ; and a deep ditch sur- 
rounded the whole city. About 12,000 fighting men, 
besides the soldiers of the Temple and the Hospital, 
formed the garrison of Acre. The whole weight of 
the defense fell upon the military orders ; and it would 
appear that the principal command was intrusted to 
William de Beau-Jeu, Grand Master of the Temple, 
whose age, experience, and skill well justified the 
choice. 

For six weeks the siege continued, and by night and 
day the unequal contest raged between 200,000 infidels 
and the small, but determined band of the defenders 
of the doomed city. Still, however, William de 
Beau-Jeu and the Grand Master of the Hospital con- 
ducted the defense with unconquerable courage, and 
for ten days even after the fall of the Cursed Tower, 
which was one of the principal defenses of the city, 
maintained the place against the entire force of the 
Moslem. It would seem that on one occasion the town 
was actually in the hands of the enemy, but a charge 
of the Templars and Red Cross Knights .drove the 
Mamelukes back through the break which they had 
entered. At length, however, in spite of superhuman 
skill and daring, the 18th of May, 1291, the fatal day 
of the fall of Acre came. The defense was fierce and 
resolute, for, though the Arabs say the Christians soon 
fled, yet they admid themselves that the Mohammedans 
did not effect an entrance for several hours. 

Nothing, during this dreadful day , was wanting on the 



FALL OF ACRE. 183 

part of the Grand Masters of the Temple and the Hos- 
pital. For some time they fought, side by side, in the 
streets, their Knights forming a living barrier with their 
mailed bodies against the torrent of infidel war. Hun- 
dreds and hundreds fell ; and, as a last resource, it was 
agreed that while William de Beau-Jeu maintained the 
struggle in the streets, the Grand Master of the Hos- 
pital, with 500 Knights, should issue forth by a postern 
and attack the enemy in flank. About this time fell 
Mathew de Clermont, Marshal of St. John ; and 
hardly had the Grand Master of the Hospital breathed 
his last when William de Beau-Jeu himself was slain by 
an arrow. 

The rest of the Knights of the Temple who were left 
alive retreated, fighting step by step, till they reached 
their fortified convent ; and the Hospitalers who 
had issued forth to attack the enemy's rear, were all 
killed with the exception of seven, who with difficulty 
made their way to the ships after having seen that the 
place was actually taken. In the meantime, one build- 
ing detached from all the rest, and a fortress in itself, 
resisted all the efforts of the infidel forces. The Tem- 
ple House of Acre covered a large space of ground, 
and was surrounded by walls and towers almost as 
strong as those of the city. 

It is, perhaps, not very possible to describe it accur- 
ately at present, but we know that within the walls it 
contained a palace, a church, a market-place and a 
monastery. There, as I have before shown, the surviv- 
ing Knights of the Temple, somewhat more than 300 in 



184 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

number with the serving brethren, and a considerable 
body of the inhabitants of Acre, among whom were 
many women and children of high rank, found refuge 
when the city itself fell. In all, it would appear from 
the account of Aboul Nopassen that the Temple House 
gave shelter to 4,000 men. 

The Knights, as soon as the gates were closed, 
and the place in a position of defense, held a chap- 
ter of the Order and elected a Grand Master of the 
name of Gaudini, to supply the place of their deceased 
leader, the gallant, illustrious and lamented Will- 
iam de Beau-Jeu. They then prepared to make 
the most strenuous resistance. Their only hope 
must have been to obtain honorable terms of surren- 
der ; and it matters not much by whom the proposal 
of a capitulation was first made. The Christians and 
the Mohammedans differ. Certain it is, however, the 
Sultan agreed to grant, and the Templars to accept, 
terms highly honorable to themselves. 

The lives of all persons at that moment within the 
walls of the Temple were to be spared. Shipping was 
to be placed at their disposal to carry them to some 
other land, and they were to be permitted to retire in 
peace whithersoever they pleased, with the fugitives 
under their protection, and so much of their more 
precious goods as each man could carry. As a pledge 
of good faith, the Sultan sent the Templars a standard, 
and a guard of three hundred Mussulman soldiers to 
insure the due execution of the treaty. The standard 
was placed on one of the towers of the Temple, and 



FLIGHT TO CYPRUS. 185 

the Mussulman guard was admitted ; but a shameful 
violation of the terms of the treaty very speedily took 
place. The women had hidden themselves in the . 
church of the Temple, but they did not escape the eyes 
or the violence of the Moslem. Attracted by their 
beauty, the guards sent for their protection forgot the 
terms of the treaty, burst into the church and polluted 
the sacred edifice by infamous violence. The Tem- 
plars closed their gates at once and slaughtered the 
criminals to a man. Immediately an attack from 
without began upon the Temple House; but the 
Knights made a gallant defense during the whole of 
Saturday, the 19th of May. On the 20th, a deputation 
was sent to explain to the Sultan the offense offered 
by his Mamelukes, and the cause of their massacre. 
The Franks and the Arabs differ much as to what 
followed ; but both accounts are alike unfavorable to 
the honor and justice of Khalil. The Christians de- 
clare that he at once put the deputies to death, and 
that Gaudini, the Grand Master, finding the place 
could not be maintained, selected a certain number of 
Knights, gathered together the treasures of the Order, 
and all the holy relics it possessed, and escaping to the 
port by a secret postern, got possession of a galley, 
and reached Cyprus in safety. The Templars who 
remained defended the great tower, called the Mas- 
ter's Tower, with valor and success, till the walls were 
undermined, and the building fell, crushing to death 
all whom it contained. Such is the Christian account, 
and there can be no doubt that Gaudini, with a small 



186 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

body of the brethren, escaped by sea. Thus fell the 
Temple House at Acre. 

The city was fired in four places ; the walls were 
razed to the ground ; the churches, and the houses which 
escaped the flames, were cast down; and nothing re- 
mained of Acre but a pile of stones. The Order of the 
Temple, however, still subsisted. Numerous precep- 
tories were to be found in various Christian countries ; 
Limisso, or Limesol, in Cyprus, became the chief estab- 
lishment of the Order ; and a powerful fleet, great 
wealth, and considerable bodies of troops rendered it 
an object of terror to the infidel and of jealousy to 
many Christian princes. Gaudini did not long sur- 
vive the expulsion of the Christians from the Holy 
Land. He died in Cyprus during the year 1295 ; 
and James de Molay, of an illustrious family of Bur- 
gundy, then Grand Preceptor in England, was elected 
Grand Master of the Order. His predecessors had 
fought and died in arms against the infidel ; but the 
last Grand Master, James de Molay, was destined to 
fall before the evil passions of his fellow-Christians. 

The fate of theTemplars had, in the meantime, been 
hard. The first reception by the King of Cyprus, 
of the little band expelled from Syria, had been kind 
and hospitable ; but the numbers, both of the Red 
Cross Knights and the Knights of St. John, who now 
flocked into the island, alarmed the monarch; and, 
before Gaudini' s death, a system of petty annoyance 
and exaction had begun, which the Templars resisted in 



JAMES DE MOLAY. 187 

vain. Three great preceptories of the Order at Lime- 
sol, Nicotia, and Gastira with several smaller Tjuild- 
ings, already belonged to the Knights of the Temple; 
but the King of Cyprus forbade any further establish- 
ments, and endeavored to impose a capitation tax upon 
the Order, in common with the rest of. the inhab- 
itants of Cyprus. The soldiers of the Temple plead 
exemption under many decrees from Eome ; but the 
descendants of Guy of Lusignan seemed to have little 
reverence for the Papal mandates ; and the disputes 
between the king and the Order were running high, 
almost to open war, when the brief and inglorious 
career of Gaudini terminated. 

James de Molay was a man of a very different char- 
acter, firm but moderate, full of religious zeal with- 
out fanaticism, devout, strict and disinterested. He 
was in England as Grand Preceptor, when his eleva- 
tion to the head of the Order was announced to him ; 
and, after framing various wise regulations for the 
government of the Knights in this country, he crossed 
the sea to France, and acted as godfather to the son 
of Philip the Fair, and then hastened to join his 
brethren iu Cyprus. He found the dissension be- 
tween the Knights and the Sovereign at its height, and 
the rash efforts of Pope Boniface YIH., in favor of 
the Templars only rendered the dispute more violent. 

An opportunity soon presented itself, however, 
of quitting the isle with dignity and propriety, and 
James de Molay seized it at once. But by this 
time, the preparations of Cuzan Khan, the great Em- 



188 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

peror of Persia who, though himself an idolater, had 
married the daughter of Leon, King of Armenia, who 
was herself a Christian princess of great beauty and 
accomplishments, were about complete for the great- 
est enterprise of his whole reign. An enterprise, too, 
which but for the influence of his Christian wife, might 
never have been undertaken, for she had not only won 
her husband's almost unbounded affection, in spite of 
his 600 to 700 concubines, but had obtained great 
authority in his counsels, by her wisdom and beauty as 
well as her prudent and judicious advice. Such was 
her influence with the Monarch Cazan Khan, that he 
not only allowed her the free exercise of her own reli- 
gion, but even had a Christian temple erected for her 
worship, and thus this Christian woman drew closer 
and closer the bonds of alliance between her husband 
and her fellow-Christians, and soon we shall see the 
great results which flowed from this marriage between 
an idolater and an earnest Christian woman. He had 
resolved to drive the Mamelukes from Syria. He 
demanded the co-operation of Georgia and Armenia. 
He negotiated even with the Pope, and with the Chris- 
tian princes of Europe ; and he agreed that Palestine, 
if recovered from the Sultan of Egypt, should remain in 
the possession of the Christians. Georgia and Armenia 
readily answered to this call ; but the only European 
Christians who joined him, were the Knights of the 
Military Orders. 

James de Molay did not hesitate ; but gathering 
together as large a force of the Templars as could be 



ALLIANCE WITH CAZAN KHAN. 189 

spared from the Preceptories, he set sail, early 
in the year 1299, once more to plant the stand- 
ard of the Cross on the shores of Syria. A large 
Tartar, Mogul, and Armenian force had already en- 
tered the territories over which the Sultan claimed 
dominion, and had encamped among the ruins of 
Antioch. The distance from Cyprus was but small ; 
and the galleys of the Temple reached Suadeah in safety. 
There, for the first time after many years, the great 
standard of the Cross was raised once more by the sold- 
iers of the Temple. Under the shadow of the Beauseant, 
they marched on at once to join the forces of Cazan 
Khan; and a division consisting of 30,000 men having 
been placed under the command of James de Molay, 
the combined forces of Knights, Moguls, Armenians, 
and Franks commenced their march toward Damascus. 
The rulers' of Egypt, however, were not inactive. 
Levies were instantly made, and led rapidly into Pal- 
estine. Damascus added her multitude, and at Hems, 
on the high road between Aleppo and Damascus, the 
two armies met and engaged. It seemed as if on 
that action depended the fate of Asia, and perhaps, 
the ascendancy of the Christian or Mohammedan 
faith in the East, and the troops on either side fought 
with desperate valor. But the forces of Islam were 
totally defeated; and the victorious Moguls with their 
Frankish allies, and the Templars and the Ked Cross 
Knights, pursued and slaughtered them till night only 
stopped the carnage. Aleppo, it would seem, had 
already surrendered. Damascus fell an easy prey to 



190 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

the conquerors. The Mussulmans abandoned the 
towns on the road to Jerusalem, and the Holy City 
itself was left nearly undefended. 

The Templars marched on and took possession of 
Hierosolyma, and it was now that they celebrated the 
feast of Easter in triumph and rejoicing. One more 
was made effort by Cazan, to rouse the European Chris- 
tians to seize the favorable opportunity, and had it been 
successful, what might have been the result ? Unhappily 
all were dull to the call, however, and though Pope Boni- 
face in his letters lauds the Pagan Protector of Chris- 
tianity, he exerted himself but little to second the efforts 
of the Tartar, In the meantime, disorders broke out 
in Iran, and Cazan was obliged to withdraw the greater 
part of his army, in order to restore tranquility in his 
own dominions. 

He left, however, a considerable force under the 
command of the Grand Master, who, pursuing, his 
successful course drove the Mamalukes back to 
Giiza, and forced them even, it is said, to take re- 
fuge in the desert. Then comes a period of doubt 
and darkness. Cazan, it would seem, trusted to 
some Mohammedan officer, who betrayed his cause. 
The Mussulmans of Syria rose in defense of their 
religion; and, although supported by reinforcements 
from Persia, De Molay was forced to retreat. The 
struggle was, however, again renewed ; but the illness 
of Cazan, his death in 1303, and the decline of the 
Mogul power, deprived the Christians of their last 
hope of recovering the Holy Land. 



HEADQUARTERS AT CYPRUS. 191 

After all had been lost which the brief campaign of 
1299 had obtained, a party of the Templars retreated 
to a small island in the neighborhood of Tortosa, 
where they were speedily attacked by an overwhelm- 
ing force and the greater part of them were put to 
death, or sent in chains to Egypt. Some of them 
escaped, however, or were ransomed from captivity ; 
and among them was James de Molay, who was re- 
served for a fate more terrible than an honorable 

death by the sword of the infidel. 

***** ***** 

There is a vacancy in the history of the Templars 
for several years. The Order was still numerous in 
England, France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy ; but we 
know little of their proceedings, from a short time 
before the death of Cazan Khan, to the first open 
commencement of the infamous persecution of the 
Order, in the year 1307. The headquarters of the 
Templars had been re-established in Cyprus ; and there 
was the chief treasury of the Order under the care of 
James de Molay, who was apparently unsuspicious of 
any evil act meditated against a body of men who had 
been for so many years, the main support of Christian 
Palestine. 

Nevertheless, numerous events had taken place 
which might have shown this brave, dignified, and 
amiable man, had he not been too confiding and 
unsuspicious of character, the blow that menaced the 
Order, its objects, and its cause. Right and justice 
had been violated toward the Templars, in many coun- 



192 A KNIGHT TEMPLAK ABROAD. 

tries. Two Edwards had siezed, without just cause, 
considerable sums belonging to the Templars in Eng- 
land. Many noblemen and Sovereign Princes had 
infringed their rights and privileges. The clergy, 
generally, hated and menaced them on account of the 
immunities which had been granted them by various 
popes. Separated from the rest of the world, and 
deprived, to a great extent, of the ties of kindred, 
they had few interests and feelings in common with 
the laity. 

Unfortunately for them, as well as for all Chris- 
tendom, the spirit of the Crusades had died out ; Pales- 
tine was lost; they were no longer admired as the 
incarnation of a widespread enthusiasm ; they were 
thought to be no longer needed as a barrier to Chris- 
tian Europe ; but it was individual cupidity and per- 
sonal malice which prompted their destruction, and 
directed the blow. Philip, the then king of France, 
was a man cold, calculating, remorseless, but ambi- 
tious and avaricious to a high degree. He mounted 
the French throne when only seventeen years old, and 
very soon began to show the unprepossessing qualities, 
which he afterwards displayed more fully. Oppres- 
sion, borne impatiently and long, at length roused the 
people to resistance. 

Riots took place in many towns ; and in the capital 
the people rose against the king and his ministers, 
who by this time by reason of his oppressions, and 
because he and his ministers by extortionate taxation, 
had reduced the value of the coin to one-seventh 



SEIZURE OF STEONGHOLDS. 193 

(which they were forced to take at its face value), had 
changed his name from Philip the Fair, to Philip 
the False Money-maker, which was significant, to 
say the least, pillaged the houses of their oppressors 
and even menaced the safety of the monarch. Forced 
to fly from his palace, Philip took refuge in the strong 
and defensible buildings of the Temple, where he was 
received with open arms by the brave and hospitable 
Knights who at once to a man drew their good broad- 
swords in defense of their king and good friend, as 
they believed. The people followed him in arms, in- 
vested the Temple House, and threatened to starve 
him into surrender. 

For two days, no provisions were suffered to enter; 
but the enthusiasm of theil' fury died away ; tran- 
quility was restored in the capital ; and the king 
escaped the fate which had seemed to menace him. 
The Templars of Paris had given honorable shelter to 
the monarch, closed their gates against his enemies, 
and promised to protect his person. But there is 
much reason to believe that he demanded more of 
them, that he required them to act against his people, 
but to their honor, be it said, the Templars refused. 
It was forbidden to them by the most solemn obliga- 
tions to draw the sword against their fellow-Chris- 
tians, except in their own defense, and, although, as 
individuals they might have, occasionally, violated this 
rule, yet they had never done so in a body.. 

Moreover, at that time the most vehement dissensions 
existed between the King of France and the Papal See, 

13 



194 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

going on to indecent violence on the part of Philip, 
which the Templars could not see, without indignation, 
exercised toward a Pontiff who had always shown him- 
self favorable to their Order. This cause of offense 
was probably not forgotten, yet Philip could dissem- 
ble ; and it would appear that no plan for taking ven- 
geance on the Templars, or stripping them of their 
wealth, suggested itself, so long as the Papal throne 
was occupied by a Pontiff, independent of the power 
of France. The Popes had so completely committed 
themselves to the support of the Order of the Temple, 
that with no degree of decency could they withdraw 
their protection ; and Alexander IV. , in the middle of 
the eighteenth century, had even defended the Temp- 
lars, both against the clergy and the monastic orders, 
with a vigor and decision that repressed, for a time, 
the jealousy which these military monks had excited. 
Boniface VIII., died at the end of 1303, and was suc- 
ceeded by a wiser and better Pontiff, Benedict II., 
who was not wanting in firmness, nor wanting in mod- 
eration. 

It M^as at this period that the French King, know- 
ing that under such a man as Benedict, it would be 
impossible to execute a scheme for the destruction 
of the Templars, affected with a common artifice of 
tyrants, the greatest attachment toward those whose 
ruin he at the same time meditated, although they had 
afforded him a sanctuary when he was in the most im- 
minent peril at the hands of his own subjects. In an 
edict of 1304, by which he granted them numerous 



TEEACHERY OF PHILIP. 195 

privileges in France, he burst forth in their praise in 
such a fulsome manner as might well have put them 
on their guard against the pitiless storm of persecu- 
tion which was destined, so soon to break upon their 
devoted heads. 

"The works of piety and charity," he says, 
in that ever memorable edict to which he so soon 
gave the lie, by showing his duplicity in his wicked 
action toward the Templars, *' the magnificent 
liberality which the holy Order of the Temple has 
exercised at all times and in all places, and their 
noble courage, which ought still to be excited to 
the perilous defense of the Holy Land, have deter- 
mined us to spread our royal bounty over the 
Order^ and its Knights, in our kingdom, and to 
afford special marks of favor to an institution for 
which we entertain a sincere predilection." " Put not 
your trust in Princes " is an axiom however, coeval with 
the earliest dynasty, almost, and favors and praises 
from a treacherous and unscrupulous monarch ought, 
perhaps, to have caused alarm; but Philip had, as yet, 
displayed no enmity of any kind toward the Order, 
confident of its strength and proud of its services. 

In addition to this, not only had the Temple Master 
James de Molay held the infant son of the French king at 
the baptismal font, but the Temple House at Paris had 
been the Monarch's chosen place of refuge in the hour 
of danger. And besides all that, the Order numbered 
among its knights, nobles of the highest rank in 
France and princes allied to the blood Royal. So for 



196 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

all these reasons (and their confidence seemed fully 
justified by the circumstances), they had no fear, no 
suspicion even, when their ruin was determined, 
and nothing was wanting but the occasion. The long 
desired opportunity came at last, and it came in 
this wise. 

On the 7th of July, 1304, died Benedict XI., 
the friend and ally of the Templars, and with him 
fell the last bulwark of the Order; for, at once, in- 
trigues began for the tiara on which, as soon as trans- 
pired, the fate of the Order of the Temple de- 
pended. Philip already had his eye on a man after 
his own heart, upon whom he felt he could depend in 
this emergency, and who for a price which he now 
had at his own disposal, he knew could be prevailed 
upon to act as the main instrument in carrying out his 
fell design, against the Order of the Temple. This man 
was the licentious and avaricious Bertrand de Got, 
then Archbishop of Bordeaux, whom Philip, who hud 
the controlling voice in the election of a successor to 
the pious Pope Benedict XI. sent for, and to whom he 
made five conditions, and the price of his accession to 
the Papal See, was to be his unconditional assent to 
these five propositions. 

History gives an account of the first four of 
these conditions, but with them we have nothing 
to do; our whole concern is with the fifth of these 
propositions, which Philip did not then communi- 
cate to him, but the nature of which, he informed 
him, that he would let him know at the joroper time 



BERTRAND DE GOT. 197 

and place. The wicked Archbishop agreed, although 
wicked and unprincipled as he was, be it said, to his 
honor with some reluctance, to the five conditions, but 
the price was too tempting to his avaricious soul to be 
refuped ; as Sir Eobert Walpole once said in the English 
Parliament, "every man has his price," and Philip 
knew well how to reach the unscrupulous Bishop whom 
he had picked out as his tool in his proposed villainy 
and the unhallowed compact was duly signed. 

Bertrand de Got received the reward of his infamy, 
was elected Pope, and assumed the name of Clement 
V. He at once proceeded to execute the four specified 
conditions of his compact, and now what was the fifth, 
which was of such a nature that even Philip, as well as 
he knew the wickedness and hardihood of the tool 
which he had just bought body and soul with a tiara, 
did not dare disclose it to him all at once, in all its 
atrocity. A French historian has said: " It has never 
been positively known what was the fifth article of the 
convention ; but all historians have conjectured, per- 
haps, from the occurrences which followed, that it was 
the destruction T)f the Order of the Temple." Can 
any one doubt it? Philip might well keep it secret, 
even from the infamous wretch whose soul he was pur- 
chasing, till he had in some degree prepared the way for 
a proposal, perhaps, the most monstrous and the most 
frightful that ever was made by one man to another. 
The rules of the Temple were severe ; burdensome to 
a degree, which could only be rendered tolerable by the 
sustaining power of enthusiasm . Some must have failed 



198 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

in the trial. Some must have yielded to temptation. 
Some must have bent under the load. It was known 
that some had been expelled from the Order; that 
some had been severely punished ; that others had 
been degraded and disgraced. A singular coincidence 
now took place. 

The new Pope, Bertrand de Grot, had hardly seated 
himself in the chair of St. Peter, before rumors began 
to be spread through Europe, which accused the Order 
of the Temple of heresy, impiety, and even of crimes so 
infamous and so horrible, that they can not be so much 
as hinted at upon a page intended for the sight of all. 

The probable origin of these rumors (for they were 
nothing more), may, perhaps, be reduced to this with 
reasonable certainty. Two criminals condemned for 
civil offenses, one a citizen of Beziers, another, an 
apostate brother of the Temple, were confined in the 
same dungeon ia Paris, previous to execution. Con- 
fessors, it seems, were not in those days allowed to 
ordinary criminals condemned to death; and these two 
men detailed, or confessed to each other, their several 
crimes. The degraded Templar charged his Order 
with a multitudes of iniquities, and the citizen of 
Beziers (no doubt seeing a chance of saving his own 
life in the revelation of what he considered a valuable 
secret), announced to his jailers that he had most im- 
portant disclosures to make regarding the Templars, 
and asked for an audience of the king in person. 

The two prisoners in consequence were brought before 
the king, who, no doubt, listened to their tale, whether 



NEFARIOUS CONSPIRACY. 199 

he believed it or not (but we easily believe what we 
wish to), with ill-concealed satisfaction, as he was 
thereby furnished with the pretext which he had long 
been seeking for an onslaught on the Order. *' Give 
me but one line of a man's handwriting," said the 
unscrupulous Cardinal Richelieu, '* and I will bring 
his head to the block ; " Philip here had sufficient testi- 
mony to justify him in putting into execution his 
nefarious project, and the doom of the Templars was 
sealed from that hour. Be this as it may, it is univer- 
sally conceded that the first charge against this noble 
Christian phalanx, rested on the unconfirmed and 
worthless statements of one or two condemned crimi- 
nals ; but what booted that to the blood thirsty King of 
France, as long as he was enabled thus to gain his own 
ends? When these statements were first made does 
not exactly appear; but it would seem that Philip and 
Pope Clement desired extremely to get the Grand 
Master, James de Molay, into their power, before they 
suffered their nefarious conspiracy against this noble, 
unsuspecting Order to become apparent. 

Even Bertrand de Got , unscrupulous and hard-hearted 
as he was, heard, with amazement and incredulity, the 
charges against the Templars when they were first re- 
vealed to him, audit is said that he pronounced them as 
"incredible, impossible, and unheard of." Philip, 
however, like another Shylockas he was, clamored for 
the pound of Christian flesh, and his creature Clement 
was compelled to comply with his wicked compact, 
not only in the spirit but to the very letter. 



200 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

In June, 1306, Clement invited the Grand Masters 
of the Temple, and the Hospital, to join him in France 
without delay, and as secretly, and with as small a 
retinue as possible, in order (as he pretended) to 
concert with him, measures for the recovery of the Holy 
Land. The wily prelate well knew how best to reach 
the noble heart and unsuspecting mind of the Grand 
Master James de Molay, who, himself the very embodi- 
ment of chivalry and honor, in fact another Chevalier 
Bayard, sans peur, et sans reproche, and always possess- 
ing mens sibi conscia recti^ was the last person in the 
world to suspect of perfidy the King of France, who 
had been the self-invited guest of the Templars in a 
time of deadly peril, and the Pope, whose predecessors 
had been so favorably disposed to the Order, of which 
he was the venerated head. 

The Grand Master of the Hospital more worldly 
wise, came not, but James de Molay suspecting 
naught of treachery, set out for Paris at once. He 
was at this time in Cyprus ; and he took with him 
sixty knights to confer with the Pope. He brought 
with him a considerable amount of treasure, which 
he deposited in the Temple House at Paris, in the 
beginning of the year 1307, and after seeing the 
King of France, proceeded to Poitiers, where the Pope 
then resided. He was there detained for a time with 
proposals of a different nature altogether from what 
he had expected. Something was said, indeed, con- 
cerning another Crusade to the Holy Land, but the 
Pope mainly dwelt upon the expediency of consoli- 



CHARGES PREFERRED. 201 

dating the Orders of the Temple, and the Hospital. 

There matters were discussed at some length, but the 
Grand Master declined to accede to these propositions, 
saying that the rumors of dissensions between these 
great military Orders were wholly unfounded, and that 
the only rivalry that existed between them was, as to 
" who could best worh, and best agree. ^^ In the mean 
time, the King of France was secretly preparing his 
plans for the final catastrophe. Secret letters were 
written in September, 1307, to the officers of the king 
all over France, charging the Templars with the most 
atrocious crimes, with crimes so monstrous, so absurd, 
and so incredible as to carry with them their own 
refutation; among them charging this order,. which has 
lost thousands of lives and millions of treasure, in 
upholding the Cross of the Savior, with heresy, idola- 
try, sorcery and most improbable of all to a true 
Templar, or Knight of the Eed Cross, the renunciation 
of the Christian religion, and the mockery of the Cross 
itself, the sacred emblem which they had worn upon 
their breasts in many a hard fought battle with the 
infidel. 

The only crime in the history of France, which 
can compare in the extent of its wickedness and 
cruelty, with the overthrow of the Order of the Tem- 
plars, is the massacre of St. Bartholomew on the 24th 
of August, 1572, at the hands of the infamous Charles 
IX., when the innocent Huguenots were butchered by 
thousands for the sake of the Christian religion, and as 
we shall see a little further along, these two of the 



202 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

wickedest kings of France met with a righteous retri- 
bution. 

Truly, " the mills of the gods grind slowly, but 
they grind exceedingly small," — but to resume our 
narrative. In these letters he commanded his officers 
in the provinces, to make preparations secretly to seize 
upon all the Templars, their houses and property, and 
then to subject them to the torture, if it should he deemed 
necessary. The king's commands were executed. On 
the night of Friday, the 13th of October, 1307, every 
Temple House was seized throughout the realm of 
France, and all the Knights and serving brethren made 
prisoners. The moment the first act of the drama was 
successfully accomplished, (for they had no suspicion of 
treachery, and hence were taken wholly unawares, and 
of course could make no defense) and the gallant 
Knights secured, of whom there were at that time we 
are assured 15,000 in the various Preceptories of 
Europe, Philip threw off his mask, and trumpeted 
forth his foul accusations against them to the world. 

He had, just before seizing upon their persons com 
municated to several neighboring Monarchs these foul 
and calumnious charges, in the hope that, by securing 
their co-operation at once, he might thus be enabled to 
overthrow the Order throughout the length and breadth 
of Europe, but, although it was an age of superstition 
and mental and moral darkness, yet these charges were 
so utterly at variance with the outward life and pro- 
fessions of the Order for centuries, that, at first, they 
were scouted at, as wholly absurd and improbable. 



TOKTUKE AND IMPRISONMENT. 203 

Even Edward 11., of England, weak though he was, 
and although son-in-law to the French king, could 
scarcely credit the tale at first. 

In Germany and Spain, to their honor be it said, the 
noble Order was acquitted at once, of all guilt; and the 
people of Cyprus bore honorable testimony to the be- 
havior of the Templars in that island. But in Italy, Si- 
cily, and France, the persecution raged, and it was not 
long before the arguments of Philip, and the anathema 
of Pope Clement, drove King Edward to a similar injus- 
tice against the Templars of England. France, how- 
ever, is the country to which our attention must 
especially be directed, for here it was that the horrible 
plot was formed, and here it was that it was consum- 
mated with a fiendishness and cruelty which is almost 
without a parallel in history. 

Every step taken by these two confederates in 
iniquity, Philip and Clement, shows the baseness of 
their proceeding. Preaching friars were tutored in 
their story by these monsters, and were ordered to 
declaim against the Order in all the public places of 
the kingdom, and in any other age but that, the 
charges made against these soldiers of the Cross 
would have been received with shouts of derision, 
aud those who made them would have been tied to 
the cart's tail and beaten with the knout for their 
impudent assurance, but in that age the charges, 
unfortunately, found credence with many of the lower 
orders, and even with some of the more enlightened 
classes. 



204 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Philip endeavored at first to draw from the Templars, 
or some of them, at least, by a promise of pardon on 
the one hand, or by the threat of instant death, or the 
horrors of the torture on the other, (which are simply 
indescribable), such a confession of guilt as would jus- 
tify him in the eyes of the world, for his iniquitous and 
and high-handed proceedings. But these soldiers of 
the Cross had faced death too often, and in too many 
different ways, to allow themselves to be thus intimi- 
dated and disgraced. He was not very patient, how- 
ever, and after a few days vainly spent in coaxing and 
threatening them by turns, Philip turned them over to 
the tender mercies (?) of the Dominican Friars, who 
were noted throughout Europe for their inhumanity 
and cruelty, and who at this time, gave the world a fore- 
taste of the horrors of the bloody Spanish Inquisition 
of succeeding centuries. 

Again the Temple House at Paris, whence had 
issued forth more than once a host of heroes to defend 
the Holy Land, was crowded with gallant Knights, but 
alas ! how changed their circumstances. Instead of a 
noble band of warriors, all armed and equipped in 
their glittering coats of mail, and with swords up- 
lifted for the contest with the infidel, there they were-, 
a band of wretched prisoners, hopeless and helpless, 
and most lamentable fact of all, captives to their 
fellow Christians, in the power of enemies more 
pitiless than the Saracens, they lay in chains, each in 
solitary confinement covered with foul accusations, and 
expecting naught but death. 



DOBIINICAN FKIARS. 205 

Every thing was gone from then); their wealth, ob- 
tained by no dishonest means, nor by oppression, but 
mostly the gift of those who admired this band of Chris- 
tian warriors, was taken from them, and naught was 
left even to pay an advocate to plead their cause. The 
Grand Master himself, fared no better than his fel- 
lows, and the only thing to vary the dreadful monot- 
ony of their lives was the frequent ordeal of the 
torture. We will not harrow the feelings of our read- 
ers by attempting to describe the various sorts of 
torture to which these noble Templars were subjected 
by those devils in human form — the Dominican 
Friars — to whom, as said above, full control in the 
matter was given, but suffice it to say, that they had 
gone through a long apprenticeship to the trade of 
torture, and had become perfect masters of their hor- 
rible craft. 

It is said that, true to the traditions of the Order 
for unshtinking bravery, thirty-six Templars ac- 
tually died under the torture, without uttering a 
single word to criminate their brethren. Many more 
came from the torture-chamber crippled for life, 
but not a man wavered until, as a last resort, forged 
letters were shown them purporting to come from the 
Grand Master, and exhorting them to admit their guilt. 
About seventy of the Order, thinking no doubt that 
they might follow the example of their illustrious 
Grand Master without shame or the sacrifice of their 
manhood, or even proving recreant to their solemn 
vows of Knighthood, confessed, while under the tor- 



206 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

ture, anything that their cruel inquisitors might dictate 
to them, but they saved only their lives for the time 
being; they were not yet free from the toils of their 
relentless persecutors, and at this time, such was the 
system of murder and torture to be seen continually 
going on in every Templar Preceptory in France. 

Soon, all Europe rang with the stories of the cru- 
elty of the king of France, and Pope Clement himself 
pretended to be shocked at the awful disclosures. He 
ordered a commission to be appointed to look into the 
matter, but the result answered little to his expecta- 
tions. The Knights, when brought before this com- 
mission revoked all confessions they had made while 
under torture, reasserting the innocence of the Order 
and the entire untruth of the charores made ao-ainst 
them, and further announced, that if any further ac- 
knowledgments should be drawn from them by a 
re-application of the torture, the world should regard 
them as false. They were allowed no counsel, nor any 
aid from sympathizing friends. Every thing was 
denied them, and they were treated with every outrage 
and indignity, as though they were the veriest crim- 
inals. 

Finally, James de Molay, the Grand Master, who 
had in the meantime been a prisoner at Corbe, 
was himself brought before the commission, in Novem- 
ber, 1309, and defended himself and his Order, at one 
and the same time, with manly boldness. He said, 
among other things, that he was " a plain, unlettered 
man, not instructed in the law, but always ready to 



ASTOUNDING TREACHERY. 207 

defend himself and the Order, against the unjust and 
infamous accusations which had been brought against 
them, as best he might." He showed that he and 
his brethren had been stripped of everything, that he, 
the Grand Master, himself, who had lately controlled 
almost limitless wealth was dependent even for his 
bread, upon charity, and that he further proposed, if 
he were allowed the aid of an advocate, to prove the 
innocence of himself and his entire Order, even to the 
satisfaction of their enemies. 

At this juncture, to his entire amazement, as may 
well be conjectured, a paper was shown him which pur- 
ported to be his own confession, made at Chinon, and 
attested by certain of the Cardinals( !). He was 
speechless with amazement for a moment, and it is 
said that he three times made the sign of the Cross, 
as though he were beset by evil spirits. At last 
his honest indignation burst forth, and he passion- 
ately proclaimed those who signed it as willful liars, 
and invoked Grod to" send upon them the punishment 
which the ancient enemies of the Templars, the 
Saracens, were wont to inflict upon malicious slander- 
ers. " Their bellies," he exclaimed, " they rip open, 
and their heads they cut off." All this and more he 
said, but his words reached unbelieving, or at any rate, 
hard-hearted listeners. The commissioners dared 
neither to excommunicate him, nor put him to death 
just then ; for his time was not yet come. 

In all, no less than five hundred Knights were exam- 
ined before the commission, and they all, to a man, 



208 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

protested their innocence as vehemently as did their 
Grand Master. Philip saw that he was being foiled 
in his fell design, and turned the case over to a 
new tribunal, which better answered his wicked pur- 
pose. This new tool was the lately appointed Arch- 
bishop of Sens, who seems even to have been too 
hardened to meet the approbation of Clement him- 
self, as he protested against his appointment. 

To this new tribunal the Templars were handed 
over, and truly, he did not disappoint his master's 
expectations. Every Templar who was dragged before 
this monster was allowed the option of renewing the 
confession which he had recanted, or he died at the 
stake at once. Glorious army of martyrs ! to a man, 
they refused to the last to admit the crimes of which 
they were accused, and in their dying agonies, they 
ceased not to declare that they were given up to death, 
unjustly and without cause. It is said that fifty-nine 
were burned at the stake in one day by this fiend 
incarnate, and not one denied his Lord and Master. 

Such awful scenes were common in other parts of 
France as well, but the Grand Master with some other 
distinguished Preceptors of the Order, still languished 
in their cheerless prison cells. For almost six years, 
which must have seemed a century to the unhappy 
prisoner, James de Molay remained a captive, and, at 
frequent intervals, he was subjected to the torture, 
and we know not whether he confessed at all in a 
moment of weakness (and who shall blame him if he 
did, at such an awful moment, forswear the Order), or 



DEATH AT THE STAKE. 209 

if SO, what was the nature of that confession, but from 
what we know of the character of the man, we should 
be inclined to think that he stood firm to the last, 
and that the confession which he had so boldly and 
vehemently pronounced a forgery, was the document 
upon which his inquisitors mainly relied in order to 
vilify, and finally overthrow the Order. 
**** ****** 

Finally, however, we reach the last sad act in the 
drama, and ring down the curtain on the last days of 
the Templars. On the eighteenth day of March, 1313, 
a scaffold was erected in front of Notre Dame, and the 
news was heralded all over Paris, that the leading 
officers of the Temple would that day admit their guilt 
of all that was charged against them, and thus fully 
justify (?) the King and the Pope, for all they had done 
against them. Their confession was said to have been 
made before the Archbishop of Sens (a veracious wit- 
ness truly) and several other suborned perjurers 
of the King 

A great multitude was gathered together to wit- 
ness this extraordinary scene. At the appointed 
hour, surrounded by the king's satellites, and 
loaded with chains, the Last Grand Master of the 
Templars, accompanied by three other prominent offi- 
cers of the Order, were led forward to the front of the 
scafibld. The alleged confession was then read to the 
four Knights and they were asked to give their assent 
to the same. Two of them, the Visitor-General and 
the Grand Preceptor of Aquitaine, awed by the pres- 

14 



210 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD, 

ence of an awful death, bowed their heads as a token of 
assent, but to their everlasting honor be it said the 
noble Grand Master, and his subordinate, Guy of Lusig- 
nan, the Grand Preceptor of the Order equally un- 
daunted, although they well knew the consequence of 
their boldness, proclaimed aloud the falseness of the 
confession, and declared that it was a sin, alike in the 
eyes of God and man, to proclaim a falsehood. 

*' The only thing for which I reproach myself," said 
the Grand Master on this memorable occasion, " is that 
I may possibly, under the agony of the torture, have 
admitted untruly, horrible offences against an Order, 
which has ever nobly served, and defended Christen- 
dom." These noble words sealed the fate of the 
Grand Master, and his fearless companion, and that 
very evening the two martyrs died at the stake on 
Notre Dame Island, victims of one of the most infa- 
mous conspiracies in the annals of history. The mur- 
derer, however, did not long survive their victims : 
Philip, King of France, died the next year, as did 
several centuries later, Charles IX., the murderer of 
St. Bartholomew, by a singular coincidence, also of a 
lingering disease, unknown to the most learned physi- 
cians of his time, and his infamous ally, the bloody 
Pontiff, died before his master, and his body was par- 
tially consumed by fire, set, it is said, by the hand of 
his own nephew. 

Enguerand de Marigny, likewise, "the power 
behind the throne, which was mightier than the throne 
itself j" who is supposed to have prompted and 



RETRIBUTION. 211 

carried out most of the iniquitous acts of Philip 
the Fair, and who had in the words of the monk of St. 
Dennis " become more, so to say, than Mayor of the 
palace, was hanged in 1315, upon the gibbet of the 
common robbers. They had hounded to death most 
cruelly the Soldiers of the Cross, and hath not the 
Lord said, " Vengeance is mine, and I will repay." 
Edward II., King of England, who had in that country 
also persecuted the Templars, and confiscated their 
wealth, did not fare much better than his father-in- 
law, Philip, the False Money-maker, as he was deposed 
from his throne by his Queen and his son, and died 
mysteriously in prison. Thus was overthrown, by the 
machinations of wicked and unscrupulous monarchs, 
assisted by their conscienceless tools (though, thanks be 
to Him who doeth all things well, not exterminated), 
the Order of the Temple, and thus, in perfect keeping 
with the eternal fitness of things, perished those who 
had so infamously, and so unjustly persecuted it. 
* ********* 

*' From the election of Hugh De Pay ens (1118) to 
the death of Jaques de Molay (1313), there were 22 
Grand Masters of the Order. After the overthrow of 
the Order of Knights Templars throughout Europe, 
Dennis I., King of Portugal, in 1317, solicited of Pope 
John XXII., permission to re-establish the " Order of 
the Temple " in his dominions, under the name of the 
" Order of Christ," and to restore to it the possessions 
which had been wrested from the Templars. The 
Pope consented, approved the statutes, and in 1319, 



212 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

confirmed the institution. The Grand Mastership was 
vested in the King of Portugal, and the Order having 
been secularized in 1789, the members were divided 
into three classes. It was designated " the most 
noble Order," and none but those nobly descended, and 
of unsullied character, could be admitted. Thus, and 
through other sources, was the existence of the Order 
protected from complete annihilation." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

PARIS CONTINUED, AND GENEVA. 

, MONG the sights of Paris must not be omitted the 
Vendome Column, located in the Place Ven- 
dome, which is a handsome square with the houses, all 
of exactly the same kind of architecture, and designed 
by the famous Mansard, which gives the square, which 
has but one street running through it, a uniform 
appearance and were it not for the two openings made 
by this street, the square would look for all the world 
like one huge quadrangle on the same plan as the Uni- 
versity buildings at Cambridge. The column was 
erected by Napoleon, to commemorate his famous 
campaign of 1805, when he utterly destroyed the armies 
of Austria, Prussia, and Eussia, in an unexampled 
series of victories, the glory of which he never subse- 
quently equaled. It was begun in 1806, and finished 
in 1810, in imitation of the famous Trajan and Aure- 
lian columns at Kome. 



VENDOME COLUMN. 213 

The shaft of the column is of stone, cased on the 
outside with bronze from the metal of captured can- 
non, in a series of bas-reliefs representing the battles 
and victories of the French, during the campaign in 
question. The figures are about eight feet high, and 
the whole forms a spiral riband eight hundred and 
ninety feet long, winding around the column from the 
base entirely to the top, and this is decidedly the 
finest column to be seen in the city of Paris. The 
column, including the pedestal to the base of the 
statue is one hundred and forty-three feet high, and 
the statue twelve feet. The first statue which crowned 
the summit represented Napoleon in a Roman toga^ 
which was taken down and melted at the Restoration. 

However, on May 16th, 1871, the Commune had 
already thoroughly resolved to destroy every vestige of 
civilization, art and culture, if possible, and to that 
end they pulled down the column and threw the pieces 
into the Seine, but the government of M. Thiers, after 
the suppression of the Commune, very wisely and 
patriotically decided almost immediately to repair it 
as far as practicable, and replace it, and they had the 
pieces hunted for in the river Seine, and actually 
found almost all of them, had the column repaired and 
set up again in a short time, and to-day it stands there 
as of old, showing the triumph of a correct public 
spirit over the spirit of anarchy and misrule, which so 
unhappily for the public weal stalked abroad during 
the sway of the Commune. 

My view of the sights of Paris was completed by 



214 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

a visit to the Grand Opera House, where our 
party paid about ten francs, or $2, for a box which 
held four people in the fifth tier of boxes, but they 
are so small' that only two persons at a time who 
are in the box, can see much of what transpires on the 
stage. This Opera House is the largest theater in the 
world, and covers an area of nearly three acres, al- 
though it has less seating capacity than the theaters 
of La Scala in Milan and San Carlo at Naples. Be- 
tween four hundred and five hundred houses were de- 
molished to provide the site which alone cost about 
$2,000,000. The building was in the process of con- 
struction for thirteen years (from 1861 to 1874), and 
cost nearly $20,000,000. It is entirely fire-proof, has 
five tiers of boxes, and will seat two thousand two hun- 
dred people. It has a grand double-branched horse- 
shoe staircase which is well worth the seeing. By the 
way, the drop-curtain at Heuck's Opera House in Cin- 
cinnati gives a fine representation of the grand stair- 
case. The most notable thing about the Opera House, 
however, is the grand salon which affords a magnifi- 
cent promenade, as in Paris at the Grand Opera House, 
half the audience go out between the acts to this grand 
salon, which is splendidly adorned with sculpture and 
mirrors from the floor to the top of the ceiling, which 
is very high, and is magnificently frescoed by Baudry, 
and is certainly the finest play-house in the world. 
The audience are recalled to their seats from the grand 
salon for the rising of the curtain, by electric bells. 
The opera given on that occasion was " L'Africaine," 



GRAND OPERA HOUSE. 215 

and it was truly a grand performance, and the scenery 
and appointments were, of course, of the most gor- 
geous character. The government subsidizes the 
Opera by giving the director, who pays no rent, a 
gratuity of $160,000 a year. To give you some tan- 
gible idea of this mammoth Opera house, I will here 
give you a few startling statistics. The stage alone 
occupies nearly two and a half acres ; just think of its 
immensity. There are three hundred and thirty-four 
dressing rooms, the staircases number six thousand one 
hundred and nineteen steps, there are nine thousand 
two hundred and nine gas burners, and one thousand 
six hundred and sixdoors. The water pipes are four 
and a half miles in length, and there are only one hun- 
dred and fifty miles of cords and ropes for man- 
aging the scenery of this gigantic place of amusement, 
and the expenses of the Opera are of course enormous. 
The gas bill alone costs $50,000 a year, merely the 
sweeping out costs $8,000, and the authors' fees and 
the droit des pauvres, or right of the poor of Paris 
to a certain per cent of the receipts amount to $100,- 
000, so that these four items absorb completely the sub- 
sidy of $160,000. In 1883 (the year that I was at 
the Grand Opera), the singers cost $17,000 per month, 
and the corps de ballet and choruses $12,000. The 
receipts average $80,000 a month and expenses $76, 
000. The Parisians, however, are so much dissatisfied 
with the way in which the Grand Opera is managed, 
that they talk of taking the Opera House away, and 
building a less pretentious one. 



216 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

The exterior of the building is enriched with busts, 
statues, and groups, all of exquisite execution, and the 
Opera House is one of the most magnificent buildings, 
probably, which can be found on the globe. We re- 
luctantly (ceZa vasay,s dire) bade adieu to Paris the 
next morning, July 31st, and took the morning express 
train for Geneva via the Paris, Lvons and Mediterra- 
nean Railroad and the first place which we reach worthy 
of note, is the most interesting place on the route from 
Paris to Geneva (a distance of about 413 miles and 
about twelve hours' travel by express), Fontainebleau, 
a handsome town of 10,000 inhabitants, and about forty 
miles from Paris, which is noted for its palace, which 
in point of magnificence stands unrivaled, and the 
picturesque forest on which it borders, both of which 
figure prominently in the history of the Kings of 
France. 

The forest is the most noted in France, being 
sixty-three miles in circumference, and contains 
42,000 acres, or more than sixty square miles in 
area. The place derives its name from a fountain of 
fine water, which the huntsmen who resorted to the 
neighboring forest found so refreshing, that they called 
\t Fontaine Belle Eau^ov the " fountain of beautiful 
water," whence, in the course of time, it became cor- 
rupted into the present form of Fontainebleau. A 
royal residence seems to have existed here from the 
time of King Robert the Devout, in the eleventh cen- 
tury, and Philip the Fair (during whose cruel reign, 
as mentioned above, the Knights Templars were 



FONTAINEBLEAU. 217 

overthrown and for the most part put to death, and the 
few survivors expelled from France), was born and 
died at Fontainebleau, and his tomb maybe seen at 
this day in the small church of the adjoining hamlet of 
Avon. 

The present chateau was commenced by Francis 
I., and was the favorite residence of that mon- 
arch and his immediate successors. Henry IV. added 
largely to it. Louis XIV. used to make an annual 
visit to Fontainebleau with all his court, and the royal 
retinue, consisting of three hundred ladies and gentle- 
men with their valets and ladies' maids, were all lodged 
here. 

This palace has been the theater of some most 
notable events. Here it was, in 1812, that Pope Pius 
VII. was lodged for eighteen months, while the un- 
willing visitor of Bonaparte ; here it was that Napoleon 
signed his abdication in 1814, and the small table on 
which he affixed his signature to that important docu- 
ment may yet be seen in the palace ; here it was on the 
20th of April, he bade adieu to his beloved Guard, upon 
setting out for Elba, this mournful event taking place 
in the Court of Adieux, and so called from that cir- 
cumstance, Napoleon standing near the famous horse- 
shoe staircase built by Louis XIII. , and here it was, 
exactly eleven months later, on the 20th of March, 
1815, that he reviewed his soldiers on his return to 
France, preparatory to the last sad act of the drama, 
which was destined, though he knew it not (and 
would have scornfully flouted at the prediction had 



218 A KNiaHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

anyone dared to make it to him), to be enacted on the 
fatal field of Waterloo. The palace was neglected by 
Napoleon, and for some time under the Restoration, 
but it was afterwards repaired and beautified by 
by Louis Philippe ; he spent vast sums upon it, and 
restored it to something like its ancient splendor. 

The palace has five principal courts called, respect- 
ively, the Court of Adieux, the Court of the Fountain, 
the Oval Court, the Court of Officers, and the Court 
of Princes. The Court of Adieux is of magnificent 
size, being five hundred and one feet long, and three 
hundred and seventy feet wide. The Court of the 
Fountain has buildings on three sides, and a piece of 
water on the fourth, and the Oval Court occupies the 
site of the original castle, of which only one turret 
remains. In the chapel at Foutainebleau, the marriage 
of Louis XV. was celebrated, and here Napoleon II. 
(the King of Rome), the son of Napoleon and Maria 
Louisa of Austria, was baptised. The most famous 
room of the palace however is the gallery of Henry II. , 
which is one hundred feet long and twenty-three feet 
wide, and is one of the most beautiful works of the 
Renaissance. 

In the palace, in 1685, Louis XIV. signed the 
famous revocation of the " Edict of Nantes," 
one of the most notable events of this reign, which 
caused consternation throughout the Protestants 
of France, which had only been surpassed by St. 
Bartholomew ; and more than a century earlier here 
died in 1765, the father of three Kings of France, 



VALLEY OF THE EHONE. 219 

one the unfortunate Louis XYI., Louis XYIIL, 
and Charles X., although the Dauphin, their father, 
the only son of Louis XV., did not himself live 
to ascend the tbrone. Here Charles IV. King of 
Spain, when dethroned by Bonaparte and succeeded 
by Joseph, the eldest brother of Napoleon, was a 
prisoner for twenty-four days, in 1808, and here it 
was that the famous Divorce between the Emperor and 
Josephine was pronounced. 

The grounds and gardens resemble very much 
Hampton Court, near London, which I visited upon 
my return to that city, and which will be spoken 
of when London is reached on our return from 
the Continent. The pond facing the Court of the 
Fountahi, which is a fine piece of water of trian- 
gular shape about one thousand feet long on two 
of its sides, and seven hundred feet on the other, is 
filled with enormous carp which live to a great age, 
and some of these are said to be two hundred years 
old. In the forest, there is much to be seen of inter- 
est ; and it is said that from a high point called the 
" Fort of the Emperor," you can see forty miles in 
every direction, and by the aid of a good telescope 
the Pantheon of Paris is said to be distinctly visible. 

Now we pass on over the dull and uninteresting plains 
of France, and as we near the city of Geneva, we travel 
between the Jura Mountains, where we get some fore- 
taste of Alpine scenery, through picturesque gorges, 
probably seventy-five miles before we reach the city, 
and near Culoz, almost forty miles from our journey's 



220 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

end, we first strike the valley of the Rhone which 
flows directly through the Luke of Geneva, or " Lacus 
Leraannus," as Csasar frequently culls it in his Com- 
mentaries, which I hud pored over many a weary week 
when a restless school boy, and when I used often to 
wonder whether I should ever live to see those won- 
drous lands he speaks of, and here I find myself after 
all in the very Geneva of my school-boy studies, and 
of which Csesar himself says, extremum oppidum Al- 
lohrogum proximumque Helvetiorum finibus est Geneva . 
Before the Roman conquest, it was a considerable 
frontier town of the AUobroges, and Caesar having 
taken possession of the place, built on the left bank 
of the Rhone a wall fortified by several towers, to 
oppose the passage of the Helvetii. I awoke early 
the next morning;, and from my window at the Hotel 
de la Paix, which is situated directly on the quay of 
the beautiful lake and at which I luckily had a front 
room directly overlooking the lake and Savoy, and the 
Jura Mountains in the distance, I could see faintly in 
the distance, fifty-three miles away, the snowy outline 
of the peak of the famous Mont Blanc, and almost at 
my feet, was moored a small fleet of lake steamers, two 
of which bore the historic names of Tell and Winkel- 
ried respectively, and which set me at once to thinking 
of the noble part which each had played, in helping to 
free his native land from the relentless grip of the 
tyrant. I thought of Winkelried's martyrdom at 
the battle of Sempach, A. D. 1314, when he rushed 
upon the serried lances of the Austrian phalanx, 



L.4KE or GENEVA. 221 

theretofore totally impervious to the Swiss, until he 
had received so many of their lances in his body as to 
break their serried column, and as the poet so beauti- 
fully expresses it : — 

" * Make way for liberty,' he cried, 
Made way for liberty, and died." 

But his fellow Swiss, by his devoted act of self- 
sacrifice, were enabled to win a most glorious victory. 
I hastened down from my room, and in the fresh early 
morning, I took a stroll along the banks of the beau- 
tiful lake whose waters are as blue as the sky above, 
and which for blueness of tint is only equaled by the 
Mediterranean, it is said ; on the opposite side, gazing 
on the shores of Savoy, and at a bend in the lake, 
perhaps a half a mile from the hotel, obtained a glori- 
ous view of this beautiful sheet of water, which is, 
perhaps, one of the most striking pieces of scenery in 
the world, and the water of which is so clear that you 
can see for some distance into its pellucid depths. 
The view was obscured somewhat by a slight mist, but 
the beauty of the spectacle I shall never forget while 
life itself lasts. At this point, a long pier is built out 
into the lake for some distance, with a light-house at 
the end, and from the end of the pier I obtained a fine 
view of the city itself, and while I was sitting there 
gazing over the beautiful blue expanse of water, sev- 
eral steamers passed me filled with happy excursion- 
ists and tourists, anxious to see the beauties of this 
famous lake which has furnished themes for many a 



222 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

poet, and the beauties of whose scenery have been 
delineated by the brush of many an artist. Byron 
says of it : — 

" Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face, 

The mirror, where the stars and mountains view 

The stillness of their aspect, in each trace 
Its clear depths yields of their far height, and true ; 

There is too much of man here to look through, 
With a fit mind, the might which I behold." 

And he has addressed matchless invocations to its 
beautiful shores, which are the chief charm of this 
famous Swiss lake. 

Geneva is celebrated as the first stronghold of Pro- 
testantism throughout all Europe, and here John 
Calvin sojourned for twenty-eight years, and died 
here in 1564, after having had enjoyed the satis- 
faction of elevating Geneva to the highest degree 
of theological renown. Here it was that Kousseau 
"first drew the breath which made him wretched," 
and we were afterwards shown the house where he 
was born. There is an island at the lower end of the 
lake where the Rhone emerges as blue as indigo, which 
is called Rousseau's Island, and here is a statue of the 
great philosopher, the work of the celebrated French 
sculptor, Pradier, erected in 1837 ; and this is a great 
resort of the people of Geneva, and especially of 
tourists (who in the summer season, crowd Geneva to 
overflowing), as they can obtain a fine view of the lake 
from Rousseau's Isle, although a better one can be 
obtained from the public gardens, which are on the 



JOHN Calvin's house. 223 

opposite side at the lower end of the lake. The Rhone 
separates the city into two divisions, which are con- 
nected by bridges. 

Among the sights of Geneva may be mentioned 
the sumptuous statue of the Duke of Brunswick, 
who left his fortune of about $5,000,000 to the 
city, and which stands in the Place des Alpes, 
and directly fronting the lake. Two colossal lions 
stand in front of the structure, and the top is sur- 
mounted by a statue of the Duke on horseback. It is 
in the form of a pyramid in three stones, composed of 
white and colored marble, and cost a large amount of 
money, but soon after leaving Geneva I saw a dispatch 
from there to the London Times^ which stated that the 
foundations of the jnonument were crumbling away, 
and that it probably would have to be taken down and 
rebuilt. No. 11 Ruedes Ohanoines, west of the cathe- 
dral, is Calvin's house where he lived from 1543, until 
his death in 1564. But the place of his interment is 
unknown, as he forbade the erection of any monu- 
ment whatever to his memory. 

Rousseau was born in the same vicinity in 1712, 
in Grande Rue No. 40. A curious sight to be 
witnessed in Geneva is several boats, anchored 
in the river Rhone, and filled with women busily 
engaged in washing clothes, and I thought at the 
time that if any water in the world could conduce 
to cleanliness, it would certainly be the heavenly blue 
water of the Rhone.^ Geneva has been noted as 
the center of those revolutionary ideas which, since 



224 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

the sixteenth century, have shaken Europe to its 
foundations, Calvin having been the great advocate of 
religious reform, while Rousseau was of social reform. 
Here it was by Calvin's order, that Servetus was 
burned to death simply because 7ie difered from Cal- 
vin's views of theology^ and here it was that some of 
Eousseau's writings were burned by the hangman as be- 
ing "scandalous, bold, impious, and tending to destroy 
the Christian religion, and all governments." 

Geneva has been the residence at one time or another, 
of some of the most gifted intellects which Europe has 
produced, and has had much to do with shaping the 
intellectual and social progress of Europe, as well 
as of the rest of the world. 

The new theater is a very ^ne building in the 
Renaissance style, and there is also a jBne museum 
called the Rath Museum, named after a General 
formerly in the Russian service, who was a native of 
Geneva. In the Hotel de Yille, or city hall, may be 
seen a number of coats of mail which were taken from 
the bodies of the dead Savoyards, who attempted to 
capture the city on the night of December 11, 1602, 
but who were repulsed with great slaughter, and one 
of the sights of the city is a fountain commemorating 
the event. 

Geneva is noted for its watch factories, and for 
the handsome jewelry which is manufactured there, 
and the displays in the store windows vie with Paris 
in magnificence. Among the eight bridges which 
cross the Rhone, connecting the two parts of the 



THE PUBLIC LIBRARY. 225 

city, is a very old wooden bridge which is adorned 
. with a series of very curious pictures, called the 
" Dance of death," and also other pictures represent- 
ing notable events in the history of Geneva and of 
Switzerland. They are arranged at intervals of twelve 
or fifteen feet, and you look up directly over your 
head at them as you pass through the bridge. The 
old wall of the city, near the opera house, is very high, 
and bears the date, 1719, although in most places the 
walls have been thrown down or are made use of as 
boulevards. One of the streets of Geneva is called 
Bonnivard, from the name of the celebrated " prisoner 
of Chillon," " whose steps appealed from tyranny to 
God," and as we were on our way up the lake the next 
day, we met a steamer of the same name coming down. 
The public library of Geneva was founded by 
Bonnivard in 1551, and now contains more than 
75,000 volumes, and at least 500 manuscripts, and a 
collection of portraits of the great reformers and 
Protestant chiefs of all countries — from Wyckliffe 
and Jean Huss, to the latest eminent man of the re- 
public. By the way, it is related of Eousseau, that in 
his early days he was an apprentice to an engraver, 
and on one occasion had been rambling outside of the 
gates of the city, until too late in the evening to be 
admitted within the walls. He was afraid to face his 
tyrannical master on the morrow, so he ran away, and 
entered upon that career which was destined to shake 
the established forms of society to their very founda- 
tions. 

J5 



226 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

I visited the watch factory of Patek, Philippe 
& Co., one of the most prominent watch-making firms 
of Geneva, and was shown through the various rooms 
of the factory, and witnessed the process of making 
watches in all its ramifications. I was told that they 
manufactured about 6,000 watches a year, and that 
the city of Geneva annually made 100,000 of them. 
That is the place to buy the finest music-boxes in the 
world, and at the hotel where our party stopped, we 
dined accompanied by the tones of a magnificent 
orchestrion, which stood near the entrance of the din- 
ing-room. The banks of the lake are lined with beau- 
tiful villas and residences, many of thehi owned by 
rich persons from the various capitals of Europe, who 
only come to Switzerland to spend the summer. 

One of the most elegant and expensive of them be- 
longs to one of the famous Rothschilds, aaid is not far 
from Geneva, on the right bank of the lake, and pre- 
sents a fine view from the deck of a steamer, as we 
saw it the next day while going up on the Winkelreid. 
A favorite place of resort in Geneva on a warm sum- 
mer afternoon, is the English Garden at the foot of the 
lake, and from which you obtain a fine view of the lake, 
and the city as well. Necker, the great financial minister 
of Louis XVI. , and his daughter, afterwards the famous 
Madame de Stael (and with Whose mother, Susanne 
Curchod, Gibbon, the great historian of the " Decline 
and Fall of the Roman Empire," was once in love, and to 
whom he actually made a proposal of marriage, though 
their engagement was distasteful to Gibbon's father, 



CATHEDRAL OF ST. PIERRE 227 

as we learn from the " Memoirs of Madame de Stael " ), 
were born in Geneva, and Gibbon remained true to 
his first love, and never married. The Academical 
museum at Geneva is well worth a visit, as there are 
a great many interesting specimens to be seen there ; 
one, especially, which is an elephant that was once the 
property of the city of Geneva, but the parsimonious 
authorities came to the conclusion that, " they had an 
elephant on their hands " which they could not afford 
to keep, so they had him killed with a cannon shot, 
stuffed him, and then had him placed in the Academ- 
ical museum. The story also says that they sold his 
meat to the various restaurants of the city, in order to 
defray the cost of his keeping, as far as possible. 

Perhaps the most interesting thing to be seen in the 
city of Geneva is the cathedral of St. Pierre, which is 
situated in the highest part of the town, which is the 
mother-church of the Calvanistic-Protestant doctrine, 
and was the scene of Calvin's oft-repeated and violent 
invectives against the corruptions of the Roman church. 
The present edifice is constructed on the site of an an- 
cient temple of Apollo, dates back to the twelfth cen- 
tury, and is built in the Gothic style with three large 
towers, one, one hundred and thirty feet high, with 
the exception of the portico which, singularly enough, 
is of Grecian architecture, and supported by five Cor- 
inthian columns. 

The interior is very plain, and free from the 
adornments generally so profuse in the churches 
of the Middle Ages. In the ancient chapel of the 



228 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Virgin Mary is the tomb of the Duke of Rohan, a cele- 
brated Protestant chief of the era of Louis XITI., 
and his armor is to be seen on top of his tomb. He 
fell at the siege of Rhinefeld in Germany, in 16B8, 
and is buried by the side of the Duchess, his wife. His 
tomb hasalengthy Latin inscription commemorating his 
achievements, and his many virtues. At the bottom 
of the choir are some stained glass windows of the 
fifteenth century representing Mary Magdalen and five 
of the Apostles. The large roses, as well as the lower 
compartments of the north and south windows, were 
placed in the church in 1835, on the occasion of the 
Jubilee in honor of the Reformation. 

Here also is to be seen a chair which was the prop- 
erty of John Calvin, in which I seated myself for a 
moment, and, afterwards, in Edinboro, I also had 
the pleasure of sitting in a chair which was the prop- 
erty of John Knox, in his own house, while I copied 
several sentences from his History of the Reforma- 
tion. These two great men, after Martin Luther, and 
the learned Erasmus, of Rotterdam, have had more 
to do with the destinies of mankind through their 
gigantic efforts in the Reformation (John Knox in 
Scotland, and John Calvin in Geneva), than any other 
two men who ever lived. They were contemporaries, 
were thoroughly in sympathy with one another in their 
gigantic mission (as they regarded it), and Knox vis- 
ited Calvin on one occasion at Geneva. Calvin, how- 
ever, was so dogmatic that he became known as the 
"Pope of Protestantism" in Geneva, but under his 



SUMPTUARY LAWS. 229 

noted administration Geneva became a refuge for per- 
secuted Protestants from every country. Protestant- 
ism has not only rendered the State flourishing and 
independent in the midst of great rival powers, but 
has produced the happiest effects on the morality of 
its inhabitants. 

Calvin was extremely austere and rigid, and a 
few of his regulations may be given to show the 
temper of the man. Among them, was one which 
prohibited more than five dishes for a dinner for ten 
persons. Plush breeches were forbidden to be worn ; 
violation of the Sabbath was punished by a pub- 
lic admonition from the pulpit, and adultery with 
death, while the gamester was exposed in the pillory, 
with a pack of cards around his neck. By the way, 
Calvin did not confine his attention to *' plush 
breeches," but he also had more to do with the present 
mode of women's dress than the rising generation, 
perhaps, have any idea of, and fewer still would sus- 
pect that Calvin was, among his other accomplishments, 
a " man-milliner( ?) " 

Prior to the Reformation, dresses were fastened 
at the back, and one of the grandest results of 
that memorable insurrection against ignorance and 
superstition was the emancipation of women from 
"dresses hooked up behind." It was Luther who 
took the bold ground that woman, so long as she had 
to have some one to assist her to fasten her dress, was 
not a free person, and that, in order to develop her 
noblest qualities, she must be permitted to " fasten 



230 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

her dress in front," and thus dispense with assistance 
when putting on her clothes. Calvin differed from 
Luther in this matter, and maintained that " dresses 
fastened in front " were not authorized hy Scripture, 
and therefore wrong. Melancthon tried to steer a 
middle course, and, naturally, gained nothing by it. 
Luther upbraided him for his want of courage, while 
Calvin charged him with heresy. The final result of 
the very hot discussion of the matter between the great 
leaders of the Reformation, was that each one clung to 
his original position, and that, with the exception of 
the immediate followers of Calvin, the women of the 
Reformed Faith accepted the doctrine of Luther, and 
began to wear " dresses fastening in front.'''' 

The old Blue Laws of Connecticut were doubtless 
modeled from Calvin's code, and in this day of liberal 
ideas such things no doubt produce a smile of wonder, 
if not of incredulity. We quote here an eccentric 
verse of doggerel, of the time, in regard to Calvin's 
hide-bound, and extremely narrow-minded asceti- 
cism : — 

"The old Blue Laws of all the best, 
Old Calvin made in solemn jest, 
For fun he never could tolerate, 
Unless established by the State, 

A Puritan, 

A funny man, 
John Calvin was a Puritan." 

The Dukes of Savoy controlled Geneva before the 
days of the Reformation, but they were finally ex- 



SCENES ON THE LAKE. 231 

pelled by a determined effort, and from these conten- 
tions between the Dukes of Savoy and the Protestants 
of Geneva, arose the term of " Huguenots," as the 
French Protestants were afterwards called. The 
German name for Confederates (that is to say those 
who were banded together to resist the Dulles of 
Savoy), was Eidgenossen^ pronounced by the French 
^^ Hegnenos,^^ whence came the term by corruption, 
" Huguenots," which afterwards extended to France. 
The attempts made by the Duke of Savoy to recover 
possession of Geneva proved abortive. Geneva was 
justly looked upon as the bulwark of Protestanism, 
and many Protestant princes contributed considerable 
money to aid in strengthening the fortifications of the 
city. 

Lake Geneva is in shape a perfect crescent, with 
its horns turned towards the south, and is the 
largest, being fifty-five miles long, as well as the most 
beautiful of all the lakes of Switzerland. It has one 
strange phenomenon connected with its waters, for 
which no plausible scientific explanation has yet been 
given. In different parts of the lake, but more fre- 
quently near Geneva, the water suddenly rises at times 
from two to five feet. This continues for perhaps 
twenty-five minutes and then the water resumes its 
original level. These sudden rises are called seiches^ 
and the only explanation that is offered of this strange 
occurrence is that of the unequal pressure of the 
atmosphere at different times. About a mile and a 
half below the city of Geneva, theArve, heading from 



232 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Mont Blanc with its muddy current, unites with the 
Ehone with its "heavenly blue," but they do not 
become blended into one another for some distance, 
but finally the Rhone loses its identity in the muddy 
Arve, and both are lost subsequently in the waters of 
the ocean. 

We came up the valley of the Rhone for some con- 
siderable distance before reaching Geneva, and the water 
had nothing of the clearness and beauty which the Rhone 
has, while rushing past Rousseau's Isle at Geneva. The 
next morning, which was the first day of August, and on 
Thursday, we went aboard the steamer "Winkelried," 
and prepared ourselves for a sail upon that beautiful 
lake as far as Ouchy, where most of our party landed, 
in order to proceed from there to Lausanne, about two 
miles distant, where they took the train for Berne, at 
which city the party were to stay that night ; but as I 
was extremely desirous to proceed further on up the 
lake in order to see the famous " Castle of Chillon," I 
did not get off there but proceeded in company with 
one of our party, Sir Dresser, and will speak more at 
length of the castle and its famous prisoner Bonnivard, 
a little further on. 

Dumas has compared the lake of Geneva to the bay 
of Naples, and he says that " Geneva sleeps like an 
Eastern queen above the banks of the lake, her head 
reposing on the base of Mont Saleve, her feet kissed 
by each advancing wave." 

Fourteen steamers plow the waters of this beautiful 
lake, the " Winkelried " being one of the largest, and 



LAKE STEAMERS 233 

they are hardly enough to meet the demands of tour- 
ists, for the immense summer travel through Switzer- 
land is estimated at 60,000 tourists annually, and most 
of them usually go either up or down lake Geneva. 

While looking over the register at the Hotel de la 
Paix, I saw the name of the Hon. John W. Book- 
waiter, of Springfield, Ohio, the Democratic nominee 
for Governor of Ohio, who was defeated by Charles 
Foster, four years ago, and who went through Geneva 
on his tour around the world ; and I also noticed two 
names which are famous in the history of Europe, 
Talleyrand, a relative no doubt of the famous minister 
of Napoleon, and Prince Napoleon and suite, he being 
the legitimate and direct heir to the throne of France, 
since the recent death of the Count de Chambord. I also 
saw registered the name of Canon Farrar, of West- 
minster Abbey, which will give you some idea of the 
class of tourists who visit Switzerland. The transpor- 
tation of freight upon the lake does not amount to 
much, the largest sailing vessels being of 180 tons 
burden, and with their large and graceful lateen 
sails at a distance on the water, they present very 
much the graceful appearance of the extended wings 
of some large bird. I am told that these picturesque 
sails are seen no where except on this lake, and in the 
Mediterranean Sea. 

Soon after leaving Geneva the steamer passes 
the small town of Pregny, which is noted as hav- 
ing been the residence of the Empress Josephine 
after her divorce, and from which is to be had the 



234 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

best view of Mt. Blanc to be obtained near Ge- 
neva. And on the top of that hill, rises the princely 
mansion of Baron Adolphe de Rothschild. The 
steamer touches first on this side of the lake and then 
on that, and thus you get a fine view of both sides 
of the lake which gradually widens until between 
Mordes and Evian it is at its widest, which is about 
eight miles. Not far from Pregny, and at a little 
distance from the lake, is the town of Ferney, or, as 
it is usually called, Ferney- Voltaire., in honor of Vol- 
taire, which when he arrived there in 1759, had only a 
few huts, but his energy, coupled with his renown, 
made the town so flourishing that, in 1778, when he 
left for Paris, there to die, the town of Ferney con- 
tained more than 1,200 persons. He built a chateau 
here which is still standing. The house is completely 
shut out from view either of the lake, or the Alps, 
but the D-arden commands a fine view of both, and the 
arbor may yet be seen in which he wrote his tragedy 
of Irene. The theater has been demolished and the 
chapel which bore the famous inscription Deo erexit 
Voltaire has been changed into a farm house. Byron 
says of him and Gibbon : — 

Lausanne and Ferney, you have been the abodes 
Of names, which unto you bequeathed a name ; 

Mortals who fought and found, by dangerous roads, 
A path to perpetuity of fame." 

The next place of any note is Coppet, the chateau of 
which formerly belonged to Necker, who retired here 



PERSONS AND PLACES. 235 

in 1790, and died here in 1804, and his daughter, the 
famous Madame de Stael resided here for some time. 
The first place of any size is Nyon, which, like many of 
the Swiss towns, nestles at the very edge of the water, 
and is protected by a breakwater only three or four 
feet high, which I thought in the case of a storm, or 
of one of those sudden rises peculiar to this lake, and 
spoken of above, would be very little protection, 
indeed, from an overflow. A great many persons are 
at the landings to witness the arrival of the steamers, 
many of them Swiss peasants in their picturesque cos- 
tumes, and the sight is quite a pleasant, as well as a 
novel one. Here is a fine old castle situated on a 
commanding eminence with walls ten feet thick, and 
five towers which date back to the twelfth century, 
and now belongs to the town of Nj^on. While going 
up the lake, we met the steamer Bonnivard coming 
down, which only enhanced our eagerness to see the 
famous castle. 

After leaving Ouchy (to which, of course,, we 
had afterwards to return from Chillon in order to 
go on to Berne), we landed at Vevey which owes 
much of its reputation to the writings of Eous- 
seau. The Church of St. Martin, which is not far 
from the town, on a high eminence, and which dates 
back to 1498, is noted as containing the graves of 
Ludlow and Broughton, two of the Regicides who 
voted for the death of King Charles I. , and the latter 
of whom read the death sentence to that unfortunate 
Monarch. The inscription on his monument (in Latin ) 



236 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

says, "He was thought worthy to announce the sen- 
tence of the King of Kings, and for which he was ex- 
pelled from his native land." 

At the restoration of Charles II., that monarch, 
desiring to punish his father's murderers, made a 
demand for the extradition of the refugees, but the 
Swiss government, perhaps, as a Eepublic, deeming 
the deed of these fugitives a patriotic one, refused to 
comply with his demand, and they died there. Lud- 
low's house stood in the east end of the town, but it is 
no longer in existence. On the house was once an 
inscription chosen by himself, omne solum forti patria , 
which was purchased and removed by one of his de- 
scendants. Not far from here, we reach Clarens, im- 
mortalized by Rousseau, and to which Byron has 
addressed some passionate verses : — 

" Clarens, sweet Clarens; birth-place of deep love, 
Thine air is the young breath of passionate thought; 

Thy trees take root in love ; the snows above, 
The very glaciers have his colors caught. 
And sunset into rose hues sees them wrought 

By rays, which sleep there lovingly." 

From here we begin to catch a glimpse of Chillon's 

massive walls and towers, and at Montreux, which is 

the nearest steamboat landing, we disembarked, and 

from there to the castle we take a small boat, which in 

a few moments brings us under Chillon's walls, where 

is said to be the deepest part of the lake. 

" Lake Leman lies by Chillon's walls; 
A thousand feet in depth below 
Its mossy waters meet and flow; 
Thus much the fathom-line was sent 
From Chillon's suow-wiiite battlement." 



CASTLE OF CHILLON. 237 

This Castle, however, owes its fame much more to 
Lord Byron than to its noted occupant Bonnivard, 
whose history was entirely known to Byron, as he says 
himself, when he wrote the poem, which is certainly 
one of the finest, as well as one of the purest and 
cleanest poems that he ever wrote. It is said that he 
came to write it as much by accident, as anything else. 
While passing around Lake Geneva in 1816, he was 
caught in a storm and stopped two days at a common 
little inn in Ouchy, and he employed his time while 
there in writing his exquisite poem, the " Prisoner of 
Chillon." Afterwards, he became acquainted with 
the history of Bonnivard, and prefixed to the original 
poem, a sonnet specially alluding to the noble Prior of 
Victor, who passed six long weary years in the lone- 
some vault of Chillon, chained to a stone pillar, and 
in solitary confinement. The ring is still to be seen 
there, and it has worn a hole in the pillar deep enough 
to lay your finger in it, and at the foot of the pillar 
are impressions of depth enough, and about the pro- 
per shape, to have been actually worn into the stone 
by human feet. Byron's name is carved on the fourth 
column from the entrance of the dungeon, and the 
second column beyond this one, is the one to which 
Bonnivard was chained; and of which Byron says, as 
he only can: — 

" Chillon; thy prison is a holy place 

And thy sad floor an altar — for t'was trod 

Until his very steps have left a trace 
Worn, as if the cold pavement were a sod, 

By Bonnivard — may none those marks efface ^=. 
For they appeal from tyranny to God.'^ 



238 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Bonnivard was here imprisoned by the Duke of Savoy, 
from 1530 to 1536. While yet young, he incurred the 
enmity of the Duke of Savoy, and the Bishop, and, 
when in 1519, the Duke entered Geneva with 500 men, 
Bonnivard fled from the city, but was betrayed and 
imprisoned for two years. Meanwhile his zeal for 
Geneva was none the less abated, and he was met in 
the Jura Mountains by robbers in 1530, who to curry 
favor with the Duke of Savoy, then in full possession 
and control of Geneva, gave him up to that despot, 
who forthwith incarcerated him in the gloomy and 
cheerless dungeon of Chillon. When restored to his 
liberty by an attack of 7,000 Swiss by land on the 
castle, and the Genevese galleys by sea, he found to 
his immense surprise and joy that Geneva was free, 
and enjoying the full glory of the Keformation, 
instead of being, as when he was imprisoned, a Cath- 
olic state subject to the tyranny of the Duke of Savoy. 
The castle stands on a rock, which was formerly en- 
tirely surrounded by water, some twenty or thirty yards 
from the land, but the strait is now dry, and the castle 
is connected with the main land by a bridge. Upon 
approaching the castle you find that it is much larger 
than it seems to be from the lake, although, in fact, I 
had expected to see a much larger and more imposing 
structure than I actually found it to be, upon entering 
and examining it. Above the entrance are the arms 
of the Canton of Vaud, in which the castle is situated. 
The rooms of the castle are quite interesting, from 
their associations, and from the embrasures on the 



THE FAMOUS PRISONER. 239 

side next to the lake, you obtain a view of the beauti- 
ful expanse of blue waters for many miles. The pil- 
lars of the dungeon where Bonnivard was confined 
have many names inscribed upon them, among them 
the names of Eugene Sue, Georges Sand, and Victor 
Hugo, but truth compels me to say that the dungeon 
is not much, if at all below the level of the lake now, 
whatever it may have been in the time of Bonnivard. 
Poets must be allowed some license, however, and 
Byron locates it below the level of the lake consider- 
ably — 

"Below the surface of the lake 
The dark vault lies wherein we lay; 
We heard it ripple night and day ; 
Sounding o'er our heads it knocked, 
And I have felt its winter spray 
Work through the bar, when winds were high 
And wanton in the happy sky." 

The name "Chillon" is to be seen in' large letters 
on the slate roof of the castle turret, on the side next 
to the lake. At the upper end of the lake we saw the 
first snow on the mountain tops except, of course, the 
distant view of the top of Mont Blanc which we got 
a glimpse of at Geneva, as indicated above, and one 
peak called the Dent du Midi, was much higher 
than the rest, and had seven or eight ragged indenta- 
tions on its surface, and was almost entirely covered 
with snow. At Vevey, we saw several American flags 
on small boats in the harbor, and on the hotel Monnet 
was displayed a large English flag, and a half dozen 



240 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

large French flags. The French use the tri-color, the 
same as we do, but they have no stars, and their colors 
consist of the colors blue, white, and red, which run 
perpendicularly, instead of horizontally, as our flag 
does and called the tri-color. A great many of the 
boat's passengers were either English or Americans, 
and I noticed one young lady who was so deeply ab- 
sorbed in William Black's last novel, "Yolande," 
that she seemed entirely oblivious of the beauties of 
the surrounding scenery and although, of course, I 
readily concede that Mr. Black is a most charming 
writer, yet I thought that was hardly the place for a 
tourist to read, while surrounded by so many new and 
attractive sights, and I wondered what she came abroad 
.for. The banks of the lake are covered with vines 
down to the very edge of the water, and very often 
breakwaters are built to protect the grapes* from the 
encroachments of the waves. 

Near the steamboat landing, we noticed a very steep 
inclined plane leading to the mountain top, which was, 
I suppose, something like 1,000 feet high, but the 
tramway was not then in operation, as they had not 
gotten the machinery in position necessary to run it. 
There are a number of fine hotel buildings on the side 
of the mountain near Chillon, and I was told that they 
only charged about nine francs a day, or $1.75, for 
what were very good accommodations. One thousand 
years ago a single massive tower stood upon the rock 
in the water where the Castle of Chillon now stands, 
and this old tower was used as a light-house and prison. 



" ILE DE PAIX." 241 

In 1238, Peter, Duke of Savoy, built the present 
castle on the ruins of the former tower. The lake has 
but one island in its whole extent, unlike Loch Lomond 
in Scotland, which is literally studded with them, and 
this is at the upper end of the lake, near Villeneuve, 
and is the one alluded to in the " Prisoner of Chillon." 

" And then there was a little isle 
WMch, in my very face, did smile, 
The only one in view." 

This little island is called the " lie de Paix,^^ and 
was planted with three elms by a lady, a century ago. 
The elegant Hotel Byron stands upon the slope of the 
hill, between Chillon and Villeneuve. "It is an his- 
torical fact, that in 830, A. D., Louis le Debonnaire in- 
carcerated the Abbot Wala of Corvey, who had 
instigated his sons to rebellion, in a castle from which 
only the sky, the Alps, and lake Leman were visible, 
and this could have been no other than Chillon." 
Count Peter of Savoy improved and fortified the castle 
in the thirteenth century, and it now stands much as 
he left it. The strong pillars in the vaults are in the 
early Romanesque style, being very large and massive, 
and belong to the original edifice. The Counts of 
Savoy frequently resided in the castle, and it was sub- 
sequently converted into a state prison. Since 1798, 
it has been used as a military arsenal. 

The mountains back of Chillon are very high, which 
make it appear to an observer on the deck of a lake 
steamer, much smaller than it really is, but I was much 

16 



242 A KNIGHT TEMPLAE ABROAD. 

disappointed in its size, when T afterwards entered it. 
A railway skirts the base of the mountain, and runs only 
a few yards from the castle, which seems to take much 
of the romance away from the place. At Ouchy, oppo- 
site the steamboat landing, is a very handsome hotel 
with neatly laid out grounds, but Sir Dresser and 
myself directly proceeded from there to Lausanne, 
which is at least two miles away from the lake, in order 
to take the train for Berne, the capital of Switzerland, 
whither our party had preceded us, instead of going on 
up the lake to see Chillon. 

There is a railway connecting Ouchy and Lausanne, 
but as we were unable to find out where the station 
was, we decided to walk, and as the day was warm, and 
I had a valise and several canes to carry, I found the 
walk a very fatiguing one. However, we arrived at 
the Berne railway station at last, and then we found 
ourselves in an irregular, rambling, old city, which owes 
much of its fame to the fact that Gibbon spent much 
time there, and there completed his great history of the 
" Decline and Fall of the Eoman Empire." The 
ground from Ouchy to Lausanne rises all the way, and 
the city itself, which was the Lausonium of the 
Romans, is now the capital of the Canton of Yaud, and 
occupies a beautiful and commanding situation on the 
terraced slopes of Mont Jorat, and has a noble cathe- 
dral and a castle, which are in opposite parts of the city 
from each other. 

The cathedral was erected in 1235-75, and was 
consecrated by Gregory X., in presence of Rudolph 



LAUSANNE. 243 

of Hapsburg, and is a simple but massive, Gothic 
edifice, and has been undergoing restoration since 
1870. It stands upon a terrace, and its command- 
ing situation is approached from the market-place 
by a flight of 160 steps. In 1537, a famous disputa- 
tion took place in this church in which Calvin, Faul, 
and Viret participated, and which resulted in the 
removal of the Episcopal See to Freiburg, and the 
separation of the Canton of Vaud from the Church of 
Rome, as well as the suppression of the supremacy of 
Savoy. The interior of the cathedral, which is 352 
feet long and 150 feet wide, is remarkable for its symme- 
try of proportion. 

Among the most noted dead in the cathedral are 
the Russian Countess Orloff, Lady Stratford de 
Redcliffe, whose husband was, at the time of his 
wife's death, the English Embassador to Switzer- 
land, the Countess Gimborn, who was the mother of 
the Baroness Stein (her husband being the famous war 
minister of Frederick the Great of Prussia j, and Major 
Daniel who was beheaded as a traitor. A tablet to 
his memory on the wall of the cathedral bears this 
tribute to his patriotism. " To the memory of Major 
Daniel, who died on the scaffold April 24, 1723, a mar- 
tyr to the rights and liberty of the people of Vaud." 

One of the leading hotels in Lausanne is called the 
Hotel Gibbon, and in the garden in the rear of the 
dining-room. Gibbon wrote the last chapters of his 
great work, which it is said he conceived while sitting 
upon a broken column in the Coliseum (fit type of the 



244 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

decay and downfall of that wondrous Eoman Empire), 
and he ended his arduous literary labors on the banks 
of the beautiful lake of Geneva. To quote his own 
words: "It was on a night in June, 1787, between the 
hours of 11 and 12, that I wrote the last line of the 
last page in a summer house in my garden. After 
laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau^ 
or covered walk, of acacias, which commands a pros- 
pect of the country, the lake, and the mountains. The 
air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb 
of the moon was reflected from the waves, and all 
nature was silent." And yet this great intellect, of 
whom Byron speaks as " sapping a solemn creed with 
solemn sneer," lived without God, and without hope 
in the world. 

The steamboats on the lake are neat and clean, and 
their attaches are polite and accommodating. The first- 
class passengers sit on the upper deck in the stern of the 
boat, while the others take their places on the bow of 
the boat, which is a few feet lower than the portion of 
the boat where the first-class passengers stay, and this 
is covered with an awning. The steersman stands at 
the stern of the boat, and the captain stands on one of 
the paddle boxes and gives his directions to the en- 
gineer below through a speaking trumpet, which seems 
strange to us. The boats are not very large, but some 
of them are quite fast, and if you desire a nice luncheon 
you will find it in the neat little cabin below, which is 
usually ornamented with neat little views of Alpine 
scenery. 



FEMALE COSTUMES. 245 

Although Switzerland has one capital and one 
united government, yet it is made up of many can- 
tons, and each has its own peculiar dress and its own 
kind of money, although they are usually only a few 
miles across, and each bordering on the other, and yet 
they retain these peculiarities from one generation to 
another. The dress of the female peasants is not only 
odd and antique, but very different, as you travel out 
of one Canton and into another. In Freiburg, which 
we passed through on our way to Berne, you will 
notice the females wearing black crape caps with wings 
like huge fans projecting on each side. 

As the train leaves Lausanne and winds around the 
mountain side towards Berne, yon obtain a most mag- 
nificent view of the beautiful lake spread out for many 
miles behind and below you, and as I reluctantly took 
my last look at the lovely view as it fast receded from 
my eyes, I thought of the " last sigh of the Moor," 
when he took his farewell glance at Grenada, from an 
eminence many miles away from the scene of his 
former glories and triumphs. Byron has summed up 
its beauties so inimitably that I hope I may be par- 
doned, if I round off this poor sketch of the manifold 
attractions of this lovely spot by still another quotation 
from '< Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," (although I feel 
that I hardly need to apologize for quoting anything 
from Byron, provided that it be done appropriately,) 
and I am satisfied, from my experience, that you can 
not travel in Switzerland, and along the Rhine, with- 
out being tempted to quote him with great frequency, 



246 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

because he has described with all the fiery intensity of 
his incomparable genius those entrancingly beautiful 
historic spots, and in such glowing lines as no other 
pen has ever equaled, or ever can. 

" Clear placid Leman, thy contrasted lake 

With the wild world I dwelt in is a thing 
Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake 

Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring* 

This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing 
To waft me from destruction ; once I loved 

Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring 
Sounds sweet, as if a sister's voice reproved. 
That I, with stern delights, should e'er have been so moved. 

" It is the hush of night, and all between 

Thy margin and the mountains, dusk yet clear. 
Mellowed, and mingling, yet distinctly seen, 

Save darkened Jura, whose capt heights appear 

Precipitately steep ; and drawing near, 
There breaths a living fragrance, from the shore, 

Of flowers, yet fresh with childhood; on the ear 

Drops the light drip of the suspended oar, 
Or, chirps the grasshopper, one good night carol more. 

" At intervals, some bird from out the brakes 

Starts into life a moment, then is still; 

There seems a floating whisper on the hill, 
But that is fancy — for the starlight dews, 

All silently, their tears of love instill, 
Weeping themselves away." 



SWITZERLAND. 247 



CHAPTER IX. 



SWITZEELAND CONTINUED. 

fHE trip from Lausanne to Berne takes about four 
hours, and the portion of the route from Lausanne 
to Chexbres is extremely beautiful, and the views are 
said far to surpass those to be seen on any other Swiss 
railway. Freiburg, the most important place between 
Lausanne and Berne, was founded in 1175, and stands 
on a rocky height nearly surrounded by the river 
Sarine, its situation being very similar to that of Berne, 
which is encircled by the river Aare which flows one 
hundred feet below the city, Berne being situated on a 
sandstone peninsula. The city of Freiburg lies on the 
boundary between the French and German tongues, 
• the lower portion of Switzerland in the main using the 
French language, while the upper portion, lying towards 
Germany, naturally, gravitates to that language. 
Freiburg has a mixture of German and French; most 
of the inhabitants speaking French, but German is yet 
spoken in the lower quarters. The city is noted for 
the big organ, and its two fine suspension bridges, and 
the latter are remarkable, the one for its great length, 
and the other for its extreme beauty. The big organ 
is to be seen in the Gothic church of St. Nicholas, 
which was founded in 1258, and completed in 1500 and 



248 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

has been recently restored. It has a tower 280 feet 
high, which dates back to 1452. 

This organ is one of the finest in Europe, and has 
7,800 pipes, some of them thirty-two feet long, and 
sixty-four stops. It is said to be equal in tone ami 
volume to a full orchestra of the finest musicians. 
The large suspension bridge is supported on four 
cables of iron wire, each one composed of more than a 
thousand small wires. This bridge is 905 feet long, is 
twenty-eight feet wide, and hangs suspended above the 
water, like a spider's web, 174 feet. 

The other bridge connects two mountains across a 
deep and picturesque ravine which opens into the val- 
ley of the Sarine, and is 300 feet high and about 750 
feet lono;. The shafts of this brido-e are sunk in the 
solid rock of the mountains, and down these the wires 
that sustain the bridge are. dropped so that you see no 
pillars, and, in fact, none are used. The other is 
secured by 128 anchors, attached to blocks of stone, • 
which are far below the surface of the earth. 

Berne, the capital of Switzerland, has about 45,000 in- 
habitants, and stands in a large bend of the river Aare, 
which surrounds the city on three sides, doubling back 
on itself, and which gives the city rather a picturesque 
location. The Canton joined the Swiss confederation 
in 1353, and is the most important of all the Swiss 
cantons. The main street of the city is about a mile 
long, and runs from east to west, and has several dif- 
ferent names in different parts of the city, and many 
of the old streets are flanked with arcades and are used 



THE FAMOUS CLOCK. 249 

by foot passengers. The bear, which is the favorite 
emblem of this city, is to be met with almost every- 
where. The city has numerous fountains which are 
adorned with statues of various kinds. The most curious 
fountain, however, to be seen in Berne is the fountain 
of Ogres, which is situated in the Kornhaus-Platz 
near the tower which contains the famous clock of Berne. 
This fountain is surmounted by a grotesque figure, 
which is about to devour a child, while the other chil- 
dren doomed to the same fate, protrude from his pocket 
and girdle, while below is a troop of armed bears. 
The bear is also to be seen on the neio^hboring; " foun- 
tain of bears," all equipped with shield, sword, banner, 
and helmet. The " bear pit," where they have a few 
bears constituting a kind of zoological garden on a 
small scale, is a great resort for the people of the 
city. 

A troop of bears go through a performance on 
the east side of the clock-tower two minutes before 
every hour. At about three minutes before the hour 
strikes on the tower clock, a wooden cock prepares 
the spectators for the spectacle by flapping its wingSj 
and crowing; the bears then march around a seated 
figure, and a man grotesquely dressed strikes the bell 
a certain number of times according to the hour. The 
cock then crows for the second time, and when the hour 
strikes, the seated figure, which is that of a bearded old 
man, turns an hour glass and counts the hour by rais- 
ing his scepter and opening his mouth, while the figure 
of the bear on the right of the old man, imitates him 



250 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

by inclinations of his head and at the same time a stone 
figure, dressed in armor strikes the hour on a bell with 
a hammer. The cock ends the performance by crow- 
ing a third time. There is always to be seen a num- 
ber of persons around the clock tower, just before the 
hour, waiting to see the performance. 

On Sundays and holidays, the crowds of people fill 
the long street which stretches from one end of the 
town to the other, all dressed in their holiday attire, 
with the glittering brooches and silver chains depend- 
ing from their shoulders, as is the custom of the Can- 
ton. 

All around the bear pit is a scene of good humor 
and enjoyment. Near the pit are stalls filled with 
all manner of refreshments for the assembled crowd, 
and all manner of toys for the children, the bear, of 
course, largely predominating ; and I remember in par- 
ticular seeing one toy which represented a bear acting 
the school-master, wearing a pair of spectacles, and 
with a book in his hand and a very knowing look, 
hearing a class of seven or eight bears recite their les- 
sons, and I brought several of these bear toys of 
various kinds to my little nephews as souvenirs of 
Berne. 

Very often you will see persons buying buns and 
other sweetmeats to feed to the bears, who devour them 
with great gusto. 

Next we visit the cathedral, which is a Gothic structure 
about 300 feet long, 125 feet wide, and 75 feet high, 
which dates back to 1421, completed in 1573, and was 



THE CATHEDRAL. 251 

restored in 1850. The portal of the cathedral is very 
fine ; the sculptures represent the last judgment ; in 
the outer arches are the Savior above, with the Virgin 
Mary, and John the Baptist on the left and right, and 
also the twelve Apostles; in the smaller arches of the 
portals, are the prophets and the wise and foolish vir- 
gins. The tower rises to the height of 134 feet, but 
remains in an unfinished state. The keeper of the 
cathedral lives at the top of the tower, whict^ requires 
223 steps to get to the top of it, and the water which 
he uses up there, is forced up by natural hydraulic 
pressure from the neighboring mountains. He shows 
you the relative proportions of some of the largest 
bells in the world, and from the gallery around the 
tower you obtain a superb view of the city below you 
and the surrounding country and the river Aare for 
many miles, which flows almost 250 feet below you. 
The cathedral contains very few monuments, but has 
an organ almost equal to that at Freiburg. 

Berne occupies a lofty situation, and is noted for the 
exquisite views to be had from there in fine weather of 
the snow-tipped Alps of the Bernese Oberland, which 
are visible from all the open spaces in Berne. The 
Federal Council hall of Berne is a very handsome 
structure in the Florentine style, 400 feet long and 
165 feet broad, which was completed in 1857. The 
sittings of the legislative Assembly, which generally 
occur in the month of July, are open to the public. 
Aside from its being the capital, there is not much in 
Berne to interest the passing tourist, it only affording 



25 2 A KNIGHT TEMPLAE ABEOAD. 

a convenient place to stay over all night for us from 
Lausanne to Interlaken, which is the Swiss Saratoga, 
and is as beautiful a valley as can be found in the 
Alps, if not any where. 

We left Berne by rail on Friday, August 3d, 
for Interlaken. Our route was by rail as far as the 
lake of Thun, where we went on board the steamer 
Bubenburg for a sail on the placid sheet of water, 
which reflects from its clear surface the snow 
white peaks of Stockhorn, Wiesen, Eigher, and 
Monch, which rise in solemn grandeur along the 
quiet shores of the pretty little Swiss lake, but we 
missed the beautiful blue water of which we have 
seen the last in Switzerland in the lake of Gen- 
eva. The water of the other Swiss lakes is more 
or less of a greenish hue. Interlaken gets its name, 
which means " between the lakes," because of its sit- 
uation between the lakes of Thun and Brienz, which are 
about four or five miles apart, and Interlaken is located 
in the beautiful valley between these two lakes, and is 
hemmed in on both sides by high mountain peaks. 

There you get the first view of the famous Jungfrau, 
which is only 15 miles away, and whose top is covered 
with perpetual snow. When we disembarked from the 
little steamer, we took our seats in the two story nar- 
row-gauge cars and would soon have been at our des- 
tination had not a carriage been off" the track directly 
ahead of us. However, this was soon put on the track 
again, and a short ride brought us to this beautiful 
spot, which is certainly one of the fairest and brightest 



INTERLAKEN. 253 

ill the world. Interlaken seems to be away out of the 
the world, and yet on account of its beautiful scenery, 
it is estimated that 60,000 tourists visit this beautiful 
spot every summer. It has a magnificent avenue run- 
ning past the leading hotels and stores, and any num- 
ber of beautiful drives and walks around it. There is 
a wonderful contrast to be seen between the peasants 
in their homely, though often picturesque costumes, 
and the stylish suits and magnificent dresses worn by the 
thousands of fashionable tourists who come there in 
the summer. 

Our party stopped at the Hotel des Alpes, which 
was a good enough kind of a house, but rather 
high-priced, considering the accommodations fur- 
nished, for I remember that I paid a franc^ or 
twenty cents, for a cup of coff'ee which I ordered one 
day at the luncheon, which I thought was pretty steep ; 
but there is a magnificent hotel there called the Vic- 
toria, which is truly sumptuous in all its appointments, 
and the grounds of the hotel are also very handsome. 
Not far from Interlaken are the ruins of Unspunnen, 
the reputed residence of Manfred, and Byron lays the 
foundation of his drama around the Valley of Inter- 
laken. 

At night the favorite resort in Interlaken is the 
Casino, a building in the Swiss style with garden, 
reading-room, wide verandas, etc. There is a fine 
orchestra here, and a beautiful fountain which they 
illuminate with colored lights, and the efiect is very 
fine. A small admission fee is charged, and you can 



254 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

sit down and listen to the band, sip a little wine, take 
a smoke, and enjoy yourself generally at a very small 
expense. I first saw here an interesting game of 
chance in which many ladies and young girls, too, 
seemed to take a great interest, they buying tickets as 
well as the men, called Chevallier, or the " game of 
jockeys." It consisted of eight horses, with their 
riders ranged around a circle covered with green 
cloth, and all started at the same time by the operator. 
You paid a franc for a ticket, the horses being num- 
bered from one up to eight, and your ticket contained 
some one of these numbers, and if the horse whose 
number corresponded with your ticket was ahead at 
the close of the race, you would get seven francs, the 
operator always charging one franc out of every eight, 
every time he let the horses race around. Often he 
would sell several sets of tickets on each race. But if 
your horse went the least bit beyond the goal, though 
he might be ahead of all the rest you would lose. I 
tried the amusing game with varying success for several 
nights, as we remained at Interlaken from Friday even- 
ing until the following Monday morning, and at last 
gave up the game about even; but I noticed one man 
who had remarkable success, and won several hand- 
fuls of silver, while I was playing with the most indif- 
ferent success. Once, my number was the winning one, 
but I had unfortunately dropped it on the floor, which 
was covered with hundreds of other tickets, and the 
croupier at first refused to pay me ; but T kept jabbering 
away at him in the very best French at my command, 



LE CHEVALLIER. 255 

and kept insisting so persistently that I had won arid he 
must pay me, that finally he gave me my seven francs. 

This race track, on a small scale, brought back to my 
mind the fine races I had seen in the Blue Grass re- 
gions of my old Kentucky home. By the way, I 
must not omit to mention that at Interlaken, I had the 
pleasure of meeting ex-Governor R, M. Bishop of 
Ohio, with his daughters, Mrs. Rev. W. T. Moore, of 
London, and Miss Annie Bishop, of Cincinnati. 
Governor Bishop was many years ago a school- 
mate of my father's, and then a merchant in my 
native town, for a number of years, and afterwards 
mayor of Cincinnati and Governor of Ohio, having 
thus, to some extent, fixed a precedent for President 
Cleveland's astonishing career. Governor Bishop hav- 
ing also prominently been spoken of for Vice-Presi- 
dent with Til den in 1880, had the <' sage of Grey 
Stone," been renominated for President at Cincinnati. 

The next morning, we started in diligences to visit 
the famous Grindenwald glacier, which is about twelve 
miles from Interlaken, and the ascent required several 
hours. It was a damp, gloomy morning, but that was 
the only day we could devote to the purpose, as the 
next day would be Sunday, so we started out rather 
reluctantly. Our road lay most of the way along the 
valley of the river Lutschine, which is formed by the 
melting of this glacier, and is a rushing, roaring 
mountain stream. At frequent intervals along the 
way we met a great many children with fruit, carved 
work of all kinds, bouquets and bunches of the beau- 



256 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABEOAD. 

tif 111 edelweiss^ that snow white little flower which grows 
on the highest parts of the Alps, and which reminded 
me of the beautiful story by that name of Erckmann 
Chatrian, which contains the sad incident of the young 
woman buried with her family under an avalanche, and 
rescued in a few daj'^s, but when restored to the light 
of day she found her hair, like that of Queen Marie 
Antoinette during her cruel suiferings, turned entirely 
gray. 

At a bridge which we crossed, there was quite 
a number of boys who held in their hands large 
bunches of weeds, and also wedge-shaped mallets, 
and I wondered what they were for, but I soon found 
out that they proposed to keep the flies off of the 
horses, and when ever the driver stopped to let his 
horses blow a little, they would " chock " the carriage 
wheels with their mallets, and for these services they 
expected a few sous or centimes from the tourists in 
the diligences. 

One little boy walked along by the side of the horses 
of our diligence^ brushing them all the time industri- 
ously, although there was not a fly to be seen, and one 
dear little girl followed us so far through the rain, that 
I had her get up in the driver's seat, for some distance 
while he walked by the side of his horses, in order to 
lighten their load a little. The Alpine roads are as 
fine as can be found any where, the roadway being as 
hard and firm as the eternal hills, and every ten feet 
or so, where the road is at all dangerous, are erected 
stone posts from two to three feet high, and at the 



VISIT TO GRINDEWALD. 257 

most dangerous places these posts have timbers 
fastened on their tops with iron spikes, thus making 
the roadway perfectly safe. Sometimes you see walls 
of solid masonry, from ten to twenty feet high, built 
on the side next to the mountain, to protect the road 
from landslides. The bridges are generally of iron 
and stone, and built in the most substantial manner. 

At one place on the way to Grindewald, we passed a 
vast deposit of stone and debris of every description, 
which had been caused, by a recent scaling oft of the 
mountain side, which extended for several hundred 
yards in breadth, and even way down to the very brink 
of the river Lutschine. The roadway was cut through 
this vast mass of debris to a depth of four or five feet. 
The gorge of the Lutschine, ordinarily, presents a 
scene of indescribable grandeur and gloom — perpen- 
dicular clifts, many hundreds of feet in height, rise on 
each side, and the swift mountain-torrent went rushing 
by us with a roar something akin to what we had heard 
at the whirlpool rapids of our own Niagara Falls. 

About four or five miles from Interlaken, the main 
road proceeds on to Lauterbrunnen, but as we were 
on our way to the Grindenwald Glacier, we here 
branched off to the left, and crossing the foaming 
torrent of the Lutschine (which at intervals would 
sprinkle us with spray), upon a substantial bridge, we 
proceeded on our way up the ascent of the Griinden- 
wald. Every once in a while, little girls, when offer- 
ing us fruit, would burst forth in one of their wild 
Alpine choruses, sung in a high falsetto tone (in fact, 

17 



258 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

if you will pardon me for saying so, they frequently 
made a false set-to, and, by the way, this is only the 
second time I believe, that I have offended in this 
manner, but really I feel Y2bih.Qv pungent this morning 
while I write), and the weird unearthly music was in- 
deed novel and refreshing to most of us. The effect 
of this novel music on the traveler is often most aston- 
ishing, and the poet Southey, in speaking of it says: 
"It is surely the wildest chorus that was ever heard 
by human ears; a song not of articulate sounds, but 
in which the voice is used as a mere instrument of 
music, more flexible than any which art could pro- 
duce, sweet, powerful, and thrilling beyond descrip- 
tion." It was while on this trip, too, that for the first 
time, I heard the full rich piercing melody of the Al- 
pine horn, and its reverberations, echoed and re-echoed 
back from the steep mountain precipices which sur- 
rounded us on every side, was, indeed, sweet music to 
my ears, which had never before heard -such entrancing 
melodies. This musicjan had selected a place right 
opposite some high precipices especially adapted to 
return the echo from peak to peak, and truly his music 
was superb. 

The Alpine horn from which this wild untutored peas- 
ant was drawing forth the most melodious sounds, is 
about six feet long, and is only a tube of wood, 
called the " Zodlyn," bound about with birchen 
bark, and from it sounds are evoked which I thought 
not the finest cornet in the world could equal. We 
gave him a few small pieces of Swiss money, and 



ALPINE ROADS. • 259 

we heard him for some time after we had passed, 
makino: the welkin rino; with his sweet melodious 
notes. During the tourist season the Alpine roads 
are thronged with these artless (?) musicians of 
nature, and they pick up no doubt a good many 
francs from the passers-by who, like myself, doubtless, 
are equally entranced by the novelty. I suppose it 
was the " Ranz des Vaches," (in German the word is 
kuhreihen), "rows of cows," that he played for us, 
and, hitherto, I had thought it to be a single air, but in 
Switzerland it seems to stand for a class of melodies. 

The words mean " cow rows," and allude to the man- 
ner in which the cows come home along the Alpine 
paths at milking time. The shepherd, it is said, 
marches in front of the herd and they wind along 
slowly after him in strict obedience to the musical 
tones of his horn. It is said that a Swiss peasant 
would feel a touch of the heimweh^ or home sick- 
ness, were he to hear the Hanz des Vaches any 
where in foreign lands, and they never play these 
melodies in Swiss regiments of the French army, 
because of the great tendency they have to produce 
desertions among the Swiss, who are yet among the 
bravest and best of mercenaries, as witness their devo- 
tion especially to Louis XVII. and Marie Antoinette, 
and to whose unswerving bravery and fidelity the 
famous " Lion of Lucerne," carved out of the solid 
rock, bears a mute testimony, which yet almost speaks. 

When we reached Grundenwald, the first thing that 
we did was to refresh the inner man with a luncheon at 



260 . A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

a nice little inn, and a party of us, consisting of eleven, 
then mounted our horses for the purpose of ascending 
as far as the glacier, and at that point we had to dis- 
mount, of course, and make the rest of our journey on 
foot. 

On our way up the mountains, our guides had us 
dismount at a mountain hut, for the purpose of taking 
us into a deep gorge near at hand, where we got our 
first view of the massive glacier, through a narrow 
opening at the upper end of the gorge, whose cliffs 
were here at least 200 feet high, and through which the 
Lutschine rushed with a velocity, and a roar almost 
equal to Niagara, sure enough. While we were in this 
gorge, a man fired off an anvil, and the report was per- 
fectly deafening and overwhelming, and the echoes 
reverberated and repeated themselves with a crash like 
unto the final upheaval of nature. It was, indeed, 
truly awful in that wild gorge, and if I had not known 
that the anvil was going to be fired, I do not know 
what might have been the result, and I should cer- 
tainly have clapped my hands to my ears^ and have 
concluded that Gabriel must be blowing the last 
trump. 

We then remounted our horses, and proceeded 
slowly and laboriously on our way up the steep ascent. 
Just as we were leaving the hut on the mountain side, 
we saw below us the portly form of Senator Sawyer, 
being carried up the steep ascent in a kind of Sedan 
chair, borne by two men, but he did not venture on the 
ascent of the glacier, which we found to be about the 



CLIMBING THE GLACIER. 261 

most exhausting task, I suppose, that we had ever 
undertaken. 

Before we mounted upon the glacier, which is said 
to be more dangerous and inaccessible, than the more 
frequented Mer de Glace at Chamounix, we were con- 
ducted by our guides for some distance into a cave, cut 
out of the solid ice of the glacier, in which we found 
two Swiss women lying in wait for us unsuspecting 
tourists, and they played upon instruments called a 
zither, and sang for us the national airs of their coun- 
try, and finally they gave us a melody to the tune of 
our own "America," which so enthused one of our 
party. Sir Libbey , that he actually gave them a five franc 
piece, while we all contributed more or less of '< lucre ; '* 
but how much more enjoyable would it have been to 
us all, had we not known that they were there only 
for moneys and the execution of our national airs was 
wholly mechanical, without the least regard to the 
grand and patriotic sentiments which hearing them 
inspired in a true lover of our country. 

We then mounted a long ladder, by means of 
which we got upon the top of the glacier, and 
then commenced a toilsome, as well as a danger- 
ous, experience. One of the party, who had been 
extremely solicitous to put his foot upon a Swiss 
glacier, here abandoned us, saying that his "life 
was too valuable (?) to his family for him to undergo 
the risk," and so we lost the pleasure of his congenial 
society on our perilous and difficult tramp, for such it 



262 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

was. Our guides, of whom we had two, often had to 
cut places in the ice for our feet, and far below us we 
often heard the roar of the waters which were formed 
by the melting of the glacier, but still we persevered, 
in spite of many severe falls, and amidst many dan- 
gers, until we reached the very summit of the glacier, 
which the guides told us was more than 8,000 feet 
above the valley below, glaciers generally beginning 
at about this height or less, while above this are snow- 
fields which the hottest summer's sun can make no 
impression upon, and the last part of our ascent was 
over perpetual snow, we then being above the line 
where the snow melts away under the influence of the 
hot suns of July and August. 

Every once in a while wewould look back, and the 
houses in the valley below us would seem like doll 
houses, and the river Lutschine, itself, appeared but 
as a silver thread in the sun light, which, at 
intervals, would burst through a rift in the clouds. 
Near the top of the glacier, we noticed a very large 
boulder which must have weighed many tons, 
and which, by the gradual melting away of the gla- 
cier will, probably, by the lapse of several centuries, 
find itself deposited in the valley beneath. There 
are thousands of tons of rock frozen into the glacier, 
which have become detached from the Alps by the 
softening influences of the spring and summer. You 
see hundreds of rivulets on the glacier, and frequently 
we could hear the roar of one far beneath our feet, 



THE AVALANCHE. 263 

which must have been a furious torrent. I got several 
hard falls but was glad to escape any serious bodily 
injury, but I felt the effects of the toilsome ascent 
for several days, the next day which was Sunday, 
being so stiff that I could hardly walk at all, and I felt 
as though every bone in my body had been hammered 
with a big club, but I would not have missed my 
experience on the glacier for any thing, hardly. 

We finally left the glacier, and ascended some very 
high cliffs on our left, along which ran a path which led 
us down to the valley beneath, but we still had several 
miles before us, having already walked upon the gla- 
cier probably for the distance of six or eight miles. 
We ascended about 75 steps in order to reach the 
mountain side on our left, and the view of the glacier 
below us was indeed a fine one. While we were as- 
cending the steep mountain side in order to descend, 
finally, into the valley beneath, we heard an awful 
sound as of several thunder storms all rolled in one, 
and we looked around amazed and bewildered, and lo 
and behold ! it was an avalanche on the mountain side 
only a few hundred yards away, and we had passed 
very near the foot of the mountain where the avalanche 
occurred only a few minutes before. It left the moun- 
tain side completely bare, and exposed the naked rock 
for acres in extent, and then the awful silence which 
followed the crash of the avalanche seemed to add ten- 
fold to the solitude and sublimity of the Alps. But 
let Byron describe it in Manfred ; — 



264 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

" Ye toppling crags of ice, 
Ye avalanclies, whom a breath draws down 
In mountains o'er whelming; come and crush us. 
I hear ye momently above, beneath, 
Crush with a frequent conflict; but ye pass, 
' And only fall on things that still would live; 
On the young, flourishing forest, or the hut 
And hamlet of the harmless villager. 
The mists boil up around the glaciers ; clouds 
Else curling fast beneath me ; white and sulphury. 
Like foam from the roused ocean of deep hell." 

We stopped at a mountain chalet, on our way down, 
which is very much on the style of our Western log huts, 
and loaded down on the roof with stones to save it from 
the Alpine blasts, to refresh ourselves, and then we 
had a man to fire an anvil again, and the effect was 
grander than ever, and seemed to ring in our ears for 
several minutes. We picked our way slowly and care- 
fully down the mountain path, and finally, late in the 
afternoon, we reached the valley beneath, where we 
found our horses waiting for us, which, however, we 
mounted with much less alacrity and a great deal more 
stiffness and awkwardness than we did on starting out, 
and finally reached the inn once more, where we re- 
sumed our places in our diligences, and drove back to 
the beautiful valley we had left in the morning, and 
not long after we arrived at our hotel, the balance of 
our party, whom we had left in London drove up, and 
then ensued a lively scene, all shaking hands, ex- 
changing reminiscences, etc., until the late dinner 
hour arrived, to which we all were able to do ample 



THE JUNGFRAU. 265 

justice, especially those of us who had taken the weary 
tramp upon the glacier. 

That evening, which was Saturday, the most of 
our party repaired to the Casino, spoken of above, 
and amused themselves in various ways. The next 
day was Sunday, and a beautiful day it was, too, 
and I strolled down the beautiful avenue called 
the " Hoheweg, or Highway," which is lined with 
fine walnut trees, and is the favorite resort of vis- 
itors to this lovely spot, and took a view of the famous 
** Jungfrau" (a " maiden " no longer, however, since 
it has been profaned long since by the footsteps of 
man), through a very powerful telescope, for which I 
paid the man, I believe, a few centimes. This famous 
peak, which is 13,671 feet in height, and whose top 
and irregular and uneven sides are always covered with 
the eternal snow, is flanked on the right by the Silber- 
horn, which is 12,156 feet in height, and on the left 
by the Schneehorn, which is 11,204 feet in height, and 
these lofty mountain peaks are, indeed, awe-inspiring 
to the ordinary observer. 

The foot of man first scaled the awful peak of 
the "Jungfrau" in 1811, when it was ascended 
by two brothers by the name of Meyers, and from 
that time until the year 1856 the ascent was only 
accomplished five times, but though extremely fatigu- 
ing and quite expensive, still if you have good and 
reliable guides, and have had some experience, pre- 
viously, in climbing mountain fastnesses by the aid 
of Alpen-stocks, it is now said to be almost free from 



266 A KNI&HT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

peril, but I thought, as I looked at its awful heights, 
after my experience of the day before on the Griinden- 
wald glacier, that I would hardly like to attempt its as- 
cent under any consideration, and more especially as a 
number of heartrending catastrophes have occurred, 
and quite a number of lives of adventurous tourists 
have been lost in making the terrible and dangerous 
ascent. 

As I had not yet experienced the sensation of attend- 
ing religious services in a foreign land, I then wended 
my way toward the ancient monastery and nunnery, 
which was hard by our hotel, and which was founded 
in 1130, and suppressed in 1528, which is surrounded 
by fine walnut trees, many of them of ancient growth. 
The monastery has been devoted to various purposes, 
and contains within its various buildings a hospital, a 
prison, an English chapel, a French-Protestant and a 
Scottish-Presbyterian congregation, and a Roman 
Catholic place of worship, and you may judge from 
this of the size of the structure. I attended, of course, 
the English chapel, where I witnessed the regular ser- 
vice of the Church of England, and I suppose that 
nine-tenths of the congregation were tourists, like my- 
self. The rector is paid, mainly, by contributions 
from tourists, and what is lacking, I understood, was 
made up by assistance from the mother church in 
England. 

On that Sunday, I noticed that the plates were lib- 
erally filled by the congregation. One of the hymns, 
which the congregation all joined in singing, seemed 



A SABBATH IN SWITZERLAND. 267 

to be especially applicable to tourists, for I re- 
member that it spoke of a " rest when traveling days 
were o'er," and it seemed especially selected for those 
who were that day, the most of them at any rate, en- 
gaged in the worship of God in a foreign land. A 
great many nice excursions may be made from this 
point, but, of course, we had no time to make any 
others than the one we have spoken of. The shops are 
full of the finest wood carvings which are to be found 
anywhere in Switzerland, and are much resorted to by 
tourists, when they have seen the sights of the place 
and its neighborho'od. 

I saw two clocks in one large store there, one 
representing Atlas, with a clock instead of the world 
on his back, worth 1,500 francs, or $300, and another 
representing a huntsman, almost life size, robbing 
an eagle's nest, and defending himself from the at- 
tacks of the mother-bird, with the face of the clock 
below, which was priced at 2,500 francs, or $500. 
The next day we bade good-by to our friends who had 
joined us on the Saturday before, who were to make 
the same excursion to Griindenwald on Monday, which 
we had made the Saturday before, and getting into the 
buses we drove to the railway station, and took the 
train for the lake of Brienz, a mile or two above In- 
terlaken, and then went aboard the steamer Oberland 
for a sail on the pretty little lake of Brienz, on our 
way to Lucerne which is situated on the lake of the 
Fouti Cantons, and which figures so prominently in the 
history of William Tell, and of Switzerland herself. 



268 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

This pretty little lake is about nine miles long, and 
a mile and a half wide, and is enclosed by lofty wooded 
rocks and mountains. The most noted sight on this 
lake are the Giessbach Falls, which consist of seven 
cascades falling from rock to rock from an entire 
height of 1,148 feet, but from the steamer you only see 
the lower portion of the falls. There is a fine hotel 
and cable tramway here, and when the falls are illumi- 
nated, the sight can not fail to be a pleasing one. 
This is done every evening from the first of June until 
the last of September, but as we passed the falls in day 
time, of course, we missed the illumination which, 
from what I saw of the illumination of the foun- 
tain in the Casino at Interlaken, must be well worth 
the seeing. 

At Brienz on the opposite side of the lake from 
Giessbach Falls, we disembarked from our neat little 
steamer, and after luncheon at a little hotel near 
the lake, and from which we got a fine view of the 
Giessbach Falls on the other side, which was much 
finer than the one we obtained when at the landing; near 
them, we seated ourselves in the diligences for the ro- 
mantic ride over the famous Briinig Pass down to the 
lake of Alpnach, on the other side of the Alps. I 
had a seat in the coupe, which is the front part of the 
diligence^ with a glass front, and is considered the best 
place from which to obtain a good view. My com- 
panion was a gentleman of intelligence who, as I after- 
wards found out, was a native of Norway, although he 
possessed a very fair knowledge of the English Ian- 



A BEAUTIFUL VALLEY. 269 

guage, and during the ride, which lasted about six hours, 
I found his company very agreeable. 

This famous pass of the Briinig was a mere bridle 
path forty years ago, and then afforded nothing of 
striking interest, except the sublime view of the valley 
of Meyringen, which then, as now, no doubt, presented 
from its summit a perfect picture. Now, however, 
the road over the pass is superbly engineered, with 
hardly a loose pebble upon it, and at least twenty feet 
wide, with ample room for any number of vehicles to 
pass, and in the summer season this road is thronged 
with them, as the Swiss subsist mainly upon tourists 
who come to see their mountain country, and the 
scenery is romantic and beautiful. 

The view, as we gradually ascend to the top 
of the pass, is one never to be forgotten, com- 
manding as it does, a fine view of the lake and 
town of Brienz, which we had just quitted, the Giess- 
bach falls, and the beautiful falls of the Keich- 
enbach, falling from perpendicular cliffs directly 
opposite us, 1,150 feet high, which presented a spec- 
tacle I have never seen equaled, the river Aare wind- 
ing like a silver thread through the valley beneath ; 
and as we wound around and around (I think going 
over the road below us not less than four or five times 
in reaching the summit), I kept watching the beautiful 
cataract on our right, and wondering whether we would 
ever rise above it, and finally we did sure enough. 

We stopped under a huge rock which overhung the 
splendid road to rest our weary horses, as it was a 



270 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

warm August day, and, while we were there, a little 
girl sold us some of the nicest strawberries I ever 
tasted ; and just at the time we were about opposite 
to the top of the fall of the Reichenbach, I looked 
back and thought that the scene was surely the finest 
my eyes had ever gazed upon. Before leaving Brienz 
I should have stated that it is noted for the exquis- 
ite wood-carving which is made there, the business 
employing 600 persons, and I suspect it is here that 
Interlaken obtains her finest specimens. 

After reaching the summit, we soon leave the Alpine 
scenery behind us, and pass respectively the lake of 
Lungern and the Sarner-See, which are both pictur- 
esque and romantic, the latter being a beautiful sheet 
of water four miles long, and one and a half wide, and 
which is said to be well stocked with fish. At Sarnen 
we changed the horses of our diligences^ and those of 
us who chose to do so obtained a luncheon at the inn 

Sarnen is not, especially, a place of note, but figures 
occasionally in Schiller's drama of " William Tell," as 
it is the capital of the Canton Unterwalden, which was 
one of the "Four Forest Cities," which formed the 
Confederacy, from which the Lake of Lucerne, called 
in French, the " Lake of the Four Cantons," took its 
name. Lake Lucerne is situated in a basin at the foot 
of the BriinigPass, and in 1836, the greater portion of 
this lake was drained into the Sarner-See, in order to 
reclaim the land which it covered for the purposes of 
cultivation. It has been lowered at least twenty feet 
below its former height, and its banks, now quite 



LAKE LUCERNE, 271 

steep, look like some old ruined wall. There was 
once a natural dam between the lake and the Sarner- 
See, perhaps twenty feet high, and called the Kaiser- 
Stuhl, or *' Emperor's footstool." A tunnel, 1,300 
feet long, was bored, through this, with only a thin par- 
tition of rock to hold back the flood, and this tunnel 
employed 500 men for some time working on it. The 
tunnel was exploded by the aid of 1,000 pounds of 
powder, and the water came through, but the land re- 
claimed is hardly worth the tilling. 

We soon reached the little lake of Alpnach, which is 
connected with the lake of Lucerne by a strait so small 
that a very short draw bridge crosses over it, which is 
opened to let the steamer, which, in this case, by an- 
other coincidence, was called the " William Tell," pass 
and we were right upon the scene of out into the lake of 
Lucerne, his many noted exploits, we having traveled on 
the lake of Geneva, on the steamer " Winkelried," an- 
other of the heroes of Switzerland, which we have 
already alluded to . Just after passing through the draw- 
bridge, we landed at Stanstad, where we noticed a 
hotel named in honor of Arnold Winkelried, and we 
saw a square pinnacled tower which was erected by 
the Swiss, in 1308, in order to help them vindicate 
their recently acquired independence, which is called 
Schnitz- Sturm, and then we were fairly launched upon 
the lake of Lucerne, by far the most famous and beau- 
tiful of all the many lovely lakes of Switzerland, and^ 
of which we had already seen almost a half a dozen, 
and traveled upon at least three of them. 



272 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

The church at Alpnach, which is a very pretty one, 
with a neat spire, was erected with the proceeds of the 
sale of timber from the forests of Pilatus, and which 
was brought down the famous glide eight miles long, 
which was erected on the mountains, during the time 
of Bonaparte, for the purpose of bringing timber for 
ship building from the mountains, but which is now 
destroyed. We passed near the foot of Mount Pilatus 
on the steamer, and this mountain takes its name from 
the tradition that, after Pontius Pilate surrendered up 
the Savior to die on the cross, his remorse of conscience 
became so great that he left his native country, and 
wandered to the top of this mountain in Switzerland, 
and there drowned himself in a small lake, whence the 
mountain gets the name of Mount Pilatus. This slide 
I have spoken of was eight miles long, and four or 
five feet wide, and was made of hollowed out logs 
which formed one continuous trough. It passed over 
all manner of gorges, and some times through tunnels, 
and a rivulet of water ran down to lessen the friction, 
and prevent the logs from taking fire. It is said that 
a tree one hundred feet long and four feet in diameter 
would pass over the space of eight miles, at a speed 
of at least a mile a minute. 



LAKE or liUCERNE. 273 



CHAPTER X. 



THE LAKE OF LUCEKNE AND WILLIAM TELL. 

Mf^HE scenery of the lake of Lucerne is said to be 
(^^ unsurpassed, even by the whole of Europe, which 
is saying a great deal, but it is truly superb, aside 
from its historical associations in the struggle of Swit- 
zerland for freedom against the tyranny of Austria ; 
and surrounded as it is on every side by the most 
varied and most beautiful of Alpine scenery, it can 
hardly fail to inspire the beholder, who sees it for the 
first time, with a feeling of awe and reverence. The 
view of the city of Lucerne, as you approach it from 
the lake, with its picturesque Schweizerhof quay, with 
its beautiful avenue of chestnut trees, and the long 
frontage of the elegant Schweizerhof and Luzernerhof 
hotels, with the ancient walls and the towers of the 
city in the background, erected in 1385, and which 
are still in a fine state of preservation , with Rigi-Kulm 
on one side rising to the lofty elevation of 6,000 feet, 
and Mt. Pilatus on the other, and behind you, Uri and 
Engelberg — all this can not soon be forgotten. 

I soon found myself in a nice room in the Luzerner 
hof , which had been selected for me beforehand by our 
accomplished and courteous courier, Mr, Mills, which 

18 



274 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

commanded a fine view of the grand old cathedral of 
Lucerne, but I was sorry that my room, as at Geneva, 
did not command a prospect of the beautiful lake, 
whose attractive and varied scenery we had lately 
so reluctantly quitted. This was the farthest point 
east which our route of travel contemplated, and 
henceforth, after leaving Lucerne, I was pleased to 
think that our steps would be "towards the setting 
sun," for, although Europe may do very well to travel 
in, I decidedly prefer to keep my abode in the land of 
my birth. 

The lake itself is almost in the shape of a cross, 
and at Briinnen, near the upper end of the lake, 
and not far from the spot where Tell leaped ashore 
during the storm, when Gessler had caused his chains 
to be removed in order that he might steer the boat, 
and save Gessler and his soldiers from the just wrath 
of heaven, in December, 1315, the three Swiss can- 
tons of Schwtyz, Unterwalden, and Uri formed a league 
offensive and defensive, and in 1332, Lucerne joined 
the league, forming an alliance and a republic which 
was to last for centuries ; and since then this beautiful 
lake has been known as the " Lac des Qiiatre Cantons,'^ 
or " Lake of the Four Cantons," or as Schiller terms it, 
in his magnificent drama of William Tell, " Die Vier- 
waldsteitersee," or the lake of the four forest cities 
in allusion, to the four cities which nestled on its lovely 
shores and which formed the noted Confederation. 
But the greatest sight of Lucerne is, after all, the 
"Lion of Lucerne," which is literally the " Lion of 



THE LION OF LUCERNE. 275 

the Place," and is a truly wonderful sight and to see 
which Dr. Loriraer of our party said he was taking 
this present trip to Europe, mainly. This is a cele- 
brated Lion, sculptured out of the natural rock, which 
is here probably seventy-five high, by the celebrated 
Danish sculptor, Thorwalsden, in 1821, to the memory 
of twenty-six officers and 760 soldiers of the Swiss 
guards who, mercenaries though they were, sealed their 
allegiance to King Louis XYI. and Marie Antoinette 
with their blood, dying like heroes in the defense of 
the Tuileries on August 10th, 1792. 

In Schiller's " William Tell," one of the task mas- 
ters placed over the for-the-time-being subjugated 
Swiss, says, "What? are you muttering?" but 'tis 
like you all ; a base, ungrateful people, fit for nothing 
but to milk cows, and saunter around the moun- 
tains," but he saw only with the eye of a suspicious 
tyrant, for a braver race of people than the Swiss (mer- 
cenary though they be) has never lived, and their 
country is well adapted for defense against a foreign 
foe, for in many a defile and mountain path of Switzer- 
land, "A hundred men could hold the post, with hardi- 
hood against the host " and they have always held it or 
died in the attempt. 

The dying Lion, which is much larger than life, 
being the immense length of twenty-eight feet, and 
reclining in a grotto, is seen transfixed with a broken 
lance, and sheltering the French shield and fieur- 
de-lis with his paws, and is truly a magnificent tes- 
timonial to the bravery of the Swiss guards. Di- 



276 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

rectly in front of the rock is a pretty sheet of water, 
in a handsome grotto, which is formed by springs that 
trickle from the rock itself from which the grand figure 
is carved. The inscription which is carved beneath 
the beautiful Lion in the Latin language is as follows : 
" To the faith and valor of the Helvetii " (Helvetia 
being the Latin name for Switzerland). '* On the day 
of the 10th of August, and the 2d and 3d of Septem- 
ber, 1792, these are the names of those who fell fight- 
ing most valiantly that they might not falsify their 
solemn oath — twenty-six officers — sixteen officers 
survived the slaughter by the ingenious care of friends," 
and the names are inscribed below. A chapel near by, 
with the inscription Pax invictis contains the coats of 
arms of the dead officers who fell in their brave, 
though vain attempt to repress the blind fury of the 
sans culottes of Paris. 

I was sorry to hear it said that the rock was gradu- 
ally disintegrating and scalLng off, and that this grand 
monument of man's genius, and which has been conse- 
crated to man's bravery and fidelity, was in danger of 
being permanently injured, if not finally destroyed, by 
the action of the elements. Near the Lion is the cele- 
brated Glacier Garden, which was discovered in 1872, 
and gives the visitor a very good idea of the action of 
the ice period, containing about thirty holes formed by 
whirlpools, and of different sizes, being twenty-six 
feet wide, and thirty feet deep, and all connected by 
steps and bridges, and this is considered one of the 
most curious sights of Lucerjje. The Bathhaus, or 



THE HOFKIRCHE. 277 

state house, is well worth a visit, and contains an inter- 
esting collection of quaint armor, which is well worth 
seeing. A fresco on the tower represents the death of 
the magistrate Gundolfuigen at the battle of Sempach, 
where Winkelried also died. The Hofkirche, or old 
cathedral, is well worth a visit, which was restored in 
the seventeenth century, but two slender towers of the 
original edifice which were erected in 1506, are still to 
be seen. It contains a famous organ, but as the per- 
formance always takes place on week days from 6 :30 
to 7:30 p. m., we could not get to hear it, much 
to our regret. 

Next, a few of us went aboard of one of the little 
steamers, which leave Lucerne four or five times 
a day for various points on the lake, in order to 
go to Kiissnacht, which is the nearest point to Tell's 
chapel, which marks the spot where Tell shot Gessler, 
after having escaped from the boat in the storm, 
on the lake of Lucerne. I had previously purchased 
a copy of Schiller's William Tell, with which I had 
become familiar when a student, and was thus consid- 
erably refreshed as to the history of the country which 
I was then traveling through, and which, of course, 
heightened my enjoyment of the lake, with its histor- 
ical associations, very much. Just after leaving the 
pier at Lucerne, a very hard rain storm set in, which 
continued almost the entire afternoon, but, neverthe- 
less, we went on to Kiissnacht, and there hired a 
hack to take four of us up through the Hohlegasse, or 
"narrow way," where Tell concealed hiuiself while 



278 A KNIGHT TEMPLAK ABEOAD. 

lying in wait for the tyrant's approach, and finally we 
reach the little chapel, which covers the very spot where 
Gessler fell at the hands of the gallant Tell. 

The road first winds around the base of the Rigi, and 
to the right, not far from Kiissnacht, on a wooded hill, 
are still to be seen the scanty remains of Gessler' s Cas- 
tle, which is said to have been destroyed in 1308. The 
" narrow way " is shaded by lofty beeches, and at the 
end of it is Tell's Chapel, which was first built in 1584 
(afterwards rebuilt in 1834), to mark the spot where 
Tell shot Gessler, and this must not be confounded 
with the spot on the upper end of the Lake of Lucerne, 
also called Tell's Chapel, which marks the spot where he 
jumped ashore from Gessler's boat during the storm, 
in which he was being taken a prisoner to Kiissnacht. 
Over the door is a painting of the event, with an in- 
scription , and on the walls inside are paintings represent- 
ing; various other famous events in the life of Tell, nota- 
bly one representing Gessler's cap on a pole at Altorf , 
before which the Swiss were ordered to prostrate 
themselves on pain of death, and another representing 
Tell shooting the apple from his son Albert's head, 
because he would not bow the knee before the cap of 
Gessler. 

A book is kept here in which you can register your 
name ; and a man sells photographs and various souve- 
nirs of the place. On the way to Kiissnacht, you see on 
the left hand, the picturesque modern chateau of New 
Hapsburg, behind, which rises the ancient tower of 
the castle of that name, (once occupied by Eudolph, 



tell's chapel. 279 

Count of Hapsburg, and who was afterwards Emperor 
of Germany), which was destroyed by the Lucerners in 
1352, in their new born freedom, and intense hatred 
of the strongholds of tyranny. To an American, 
Switzerland must alwa^^s be a land viewed with deep 
emotion, and while I was standing in the little chapel, 
I thought often of my native land, and of her strug- 
gles for liberty against the tyrannical oppression of the 
mother country, and compared her with Switzerland, 
struggling against the tyranny of Austria, and I 
thought that Tell was perfectly justifiable in lying in 
wait for Gessler, and in sending home the shaft to the 
tyrant's bosom, which helped so much to knock off the 
manacles from Switzerland. 

Gessler's own wicked conscience well told him who 
had fired the fatal shot. Immediately after the shot 
was fired which soo» resounded around the world, "Das 
war TelVs Schoss,'' the tyrant exclaimed, to which 
Tell, appearing on the rocks above, replies: — 

"Thou knowest the shooter, look not for another, 
Our homes are free, and innocence secure : 
Thou wilst inflict no further wrongs upon us." 

And with Tell to lead them on, not long did it take 
the hardy Swiss to carve with their swords, their way 
to freedom. I regretted very much that time prevented 
ray taking an excursion to Fluelen, at the upper end of 
the lake, so that I might have gone to Altorf, a few 
miles from there, and seen the place where Tell made 
his famous shot at the apple on Albert's head ; but we 



280 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

had not the time to make both excursions. Briinnen, 
on the lake, is noted as the place where the league of 
the Swiss Cantons was entered into, and not far from 
there is to be seen the large rock bearing the inscrip- 
tion, signifying that it is to " Frederick Schiller, the 
Bard of Tell." A singular fact in connection with this 
remarkable drama is that Schiller, its famous author, 
himself, never saw the scene of this unequaled pro- 
duction, but the idea was suggested to him by his 
friend Goethe, who, after a tour through the Forest 
Cantons in 1797, had intended to make it the ground- 
work of an epic poem himself. 

" One valuable idea which he seems to have com- 
municated to him is this: His own conception of the 
character of Tell. With the exception of Schiller, 
all dramatists, who have attempted the theme, paint 
him too much as a sentimental reformer. But 
Goethe saw that the true dramatic capability of 
the character lay in his simplicity, both of feel 
ing and expression ! In representing him, as he 
was, a rude dweller among the mountains, leading 
a life of labor, and never thinking of political free- 
dom or slavery, until oppression penetrated to his 
own fireside, and even then, only anxious at first to 
escape the evil as best he might, till step by step, he is 
led on to the death of Gessler, as the only means of 
preserving his own existence and that. of his family." 
Not far from the inscription to Schiller is the 
famous meadow of Riitli, where the founders of Swiss 



A SOLEMN COMPACT. 281 

liberty met, and bound themselves by solemn oath, to 
free their country from the ruthless invader. 

"I see the rock and little cross upon it. 
Here is our place of meeting! This is Eiitli." 

On the night of November 17, 1307, Werner Stauf- 
facher, of Schwytz, Walter Fiirst, of Uri, whose 
daughter Tell had married, and Arnold Anderhalden, 
(commonly called Melchtal, of Unterwalden), repaired 
to the meadow of Riitli, each bringing with him ten de- 
termined men of his own canton. Men to whom the 
freedom of their fatherland was everything, and their 
own lives in comparison with it nothing. Here with 
beating hearts, and united by the perils of the time, in 
strictest league, these thirty-three brave men gave 
each their brotherly hands and swore a solemn oath, 
engaging " to live and die for the rights of an inno- 
cent and oppressed people ! to undertake and execute 
everything in concert; to defend their own franchises, 
without trespassing on the rights of others ; to respect 
the property, and not to shed — except in self-de- 
fense — the blood even of their most cruel oppressors ; 
but to put down all tyranny and unjust power, and to 
preserve unimpaired to posterity the liberties which 
they had themselves received from their forefathers." 

Tell, however, took no part in these deliberations, 
though earnestly asked to do so by Stauffacher, being, 
as he said himself, a '•' man of deeds, and not of 
words ; ' ' but history nevertheless has assigned him 



282 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

a fitting place in the list of immortal heroes, who 
have fought for human liberty in all ages : — 

"Tell draws the lost lamb from the precipice! 
And think'st thou he'd abandon his dear friends? 
Yet still — whate'er ye do — omit me from 
Your councils; I'm no man of words, I deal not 
In long deliberation and debate — 
But when you have resolved on your straight course 
And stand prepa7'ed for action — call on Tell — 
And Tell will not be wanting in his duty." 

Tell was born at Biirglen, not far from Altorf , and 
a chapel erected in 1522, marks the spot where his 
house previously stood. 

In the year 1388 — only thirty-four years after Tell's 
death — a chapel was erected by the Landsgemeinde 
of Uri, on the spot where he leaped on shore — 

« I bade the rowers ply their arms with vigor 
Until they came before the Kocky Plat — 
' There,' said I, * all the roughest will be past ' — 
And now, by briskly rowing, we had reached it ; 
When suddenly — first having seized my crossbow 
And breathing all the while a prayer to Heaven, 
I sprang myself upon the Plat above. 
High — springing with a bound, and sending back 
The staggered boat into the whirl of waters — 
There — with God's will — may she drift on at leisure. 
Thus I am here, escaped the storm's dread power. 
And, dreader still, the power of evil men." 

The chapel has been, from time to time, kept up 
and renewed ever since, and once a year mass is said 
and a sermon preached in it, at which the inhabitants 
of the Forest Cantons attend, repairing thither in 



WAS TELL ONLY A MYTH? 283 

boats, and forming a grand procession on the lake. 
Speaking of the scene here and at Eiitli, Sir James 
Mcintosh says : ' ' The combination of what is grandest 
in Nature, with whatever is pure and sublime in human 
conduct, affected me more thoroughly than in any place 
which I had ever seen. Perhaps, neither Grreece nor 
Eome would have had such power over me. They are 
dead. The present inhabitants are a race who regard, 
with little or no feeling, the memorials of former 
ages. This is, perhaps, the only place on our globe 
where deeds of pure virtue, ancient enough to be 
venerable, are consecrated by the religion of the peo- 
ple and continue to command interest and reverence. 

No local superstition, so beautiful and so moral, any 
where exists. The inhabitants of Thermopylae, or 
Marathon, know no more of those famous spots, than 
that they are so many square feet of earth,. England is 
too extensive to make Eunnymede an object of natural 
affection. In countries of industry and wealth the 
stream of events sweeps away these old remembrances. 
The solitude of the Alps is a sanctuary destined for the 
monuments of ancient virtue. Eiitli, and Tell's 
Chapel, are as much reverenced by the Alpine peasants 
as is Mecca by a devout Mussulman." 

A great many people, however, have been inclined to 
look upon the story of Tell as a myth, and yet I am so 
loth to give up my belief in Switzerland's famous hero, 
and more especially, after having visited some of the 
very spots made almost sacred to a lover of human 
liberty by his historic footsteps, that at the risk of be- 



284 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

coming tedious I propose to produce a few internal evi- 
dences that Tell " lived and moved, and had his being," 
from an authority which is, to me, at least, sufficiently 
convincing, but which it is hardly necessary to name at 
this time. " The story of Tell, however, must finally 
rest for credence or reflection on the strenjjth or weak- 
ness of its own evidences which may be thus briefly 
summed up ; 1. The uninterrupted tradition and belief of 
the Swiss, from father to son, for more than five hundred 
years. 2. The many old German songs and romances 
in which he is celebrated, and which (as Coxe has very 
justly observed), are so remarkable for their ancient 
dialect and simplicity, as to leave little doubt, either of 
their own authenticity, or of the truth of the deeds 
which they commemorate. 3. The chronicles and nar- 
ratives of Klingenberg, Egloff, Etterlin, Melchior, 
Kuss, Tschudi, Simer, and other historians, from the 
fourteenth century down to the present day. 4. The 
erection of three chapels (one of them — that at the 
Tell's Plat — in 1388, only thirty-four years after 
Tell's death, and when there were present one hundred 
and fourteen persons in the Landsgemeinde of Uri, who 
had personally Tcnown him) — and the religious solem- 
nities with which, for the last four hundred and fifty 
yearSi his countrymen have never failed annually to 
commemorate his deeds, and to thank God for the 
prowess and triumph of his arm." 

Upon our return to Lucerne, I visited a panorama of 
the famous Rigi-Kulmand the surrounding mountains, 
which gave me a very good idea of them, especially as 



RIGI-KULM. 285 

I had not time to ascend the Eigi-Kulm, which is about 
6,000 feet high, and see the view which is said to be one 
of the most glorious in all Europe. Many tourists go up 
by the inclined plane to see the sun set, and then stay 
all night for the sun rise in the morning, which is said to 
well repay the traveler, if the weather should be favor- 
able, which is not, however, always the case among the 
Alps, by a good deal. Rigi, however, is said to enjoy 
more fair weather than Mt. Pilatus. Of Mt. Pilatus 
they have a rhyme, which runs as follows: — 

"If Pilatus wears his cap, serene will be the day; 
If his collar he puts on, you may venture on the way; 
But if his sword he wields, at home you'd better stay.' 

Besides what has been already mentioned, about all 
that is now left to be seen of interest in Lucerne are two 
of the bridges across the river Keuss, which issues from 
the lake with great swiftness, with its clear emerald-green 
water. Two bridges which cross it are of wood, quite 
old, and very curious to the pedestrian who strolls 
leisurely through them, because of what he sees over- 
head. The one next to the fine iron bridge is called the 
Kapell-Briicke, and runs across the river in a kind of a 
zig-zag, and is covered with a wooden roof, which is 
painted with 154 scenes from the lives of St. Leodegar 
and St. Mauritius, the patron saints of Lucerne, and 
with scenes from Swiss history, mostly battles and 
sieges. Near the bridge, and in the middle of the river, 
and from which there is a door leading to the old tower 
is the Wasser Thurm, or water tower, which is quite 



286 . A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

venerable, having, no doubt, been one of the ancient 
defenses of the city, where are kept the archives 
of the city, and which was once used as a light- 
house, or lucerna in the days of the Romans, and 
whence the city probably derives its name. A fourth 
bridge, called the Miihlen-Briicke, somewhat lower 
down, and much shorter than the one above described, 
has a series of quaint and striking pictures called the 
" Dance of Death," the principal figures being skele- 
tons, embracing in their horrible grasp, creatures of 
flesh and blood, etc. On the hills back of Lucerne, a 
fine view of the old city walls, of the lake and city be- 
low, and the beautiful Alpine peaks in the distance, is 
to be obtained, which will well repay the pedestrian 
who will take the pains to climb the steep ascent. 

The next morning, which was Wednesday, August 8th, 
we took the train for Strasbourg, and on the way, about 
thirteen miles from Lucerne, we approach the lake of 
Sempach, which is a very pretty sheet of water, about 
five miles long, and a mile and a half wide, and which 
abounds in fish. The railway skirts the lake for the 
greater part of the distance, and we see the famous 
field of Sempach, where Arnold Winkelried immortal- 
ized himself. It was here that Duke Leopold, of Aus- 
tria, was signally defeated on the 9th of July, 1386, 
by the Swiss Confederates, being himself slain with 
263 of his bravest knights, and more than 2,000 com- 
mon soldiers, while the Swiss loss was only about 200; 
greatest of all being the noble martyr, Arnold Winkel- 
ried. The Swiss had made several charges upon the 



SWISS RAILROADS 287 

serried lances of the Austrian phalanx, without being 
able to make any impression on them, when Arnold 
Wlnkelried spoke up, and said that if Switzerland 
would care for his wife and children, he would 
throwhimself on the lances of the Austrians, receiving 
as many of their lances as he possibly could in his 
body, and his comrades should then take advantage of 
this temporary break in the Austrian phalanx, and 
charge and break the Austrian front. He gave up his 
life, a martyr to his country, and by his noble act 
of self-sacrifice, the Swiss won a glorious victory, and 
it is no wonder that Winkelried ranks with Tell in the 
hearts of the Swiss. 

The Swiss railway carriages are built on the Ameri- 
can plan, and were the first we had seen in Europe, 
which were anything like what we had been accustomed 
to. The carriages do not hold so many persons as 
ours do, but as our party numbered then about twenty- 
two, we all managed, I believe, to be seated in one 
carriage, which made us all feel more sociable than 
before, when we were broken up into little parties of 
six or eight. They have something novel in Europe 
in the way of steel railway ties, instead of wood, which 
are in use in that country altogether. We saw great 
piles of them at many of the stations in various parts 
of the countries through which we passed, and we 
were told that, though they cost more than wooden 
ties at the outset, yet they are much lighter to 
handle, and wore so much longer and better, that they 
were much cheaper in the end. 



288 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

There is not much to be seen of interest between 
Lucerne and Basle, at which point we arrived about 
11 a. m., and stopped there for luncheon, and 
to see the sights of the city, and we remained there 
until about 4 p. m., when we took our seats in the 
train for the famous old Cathedral, City of Stras- 
bourg, which is one of the most strongly fortified 
cities in Europe, the Germans, I suppose, never in- 
tending the French to reclaim it as their own, they 
having once held it, from the days of Louis XIV., for 
about 200 years. The Swiss Railway Terminus, at 
Bael, which unites the Alsace Railway with the Swiss 
Central Railway, is a magnificent structure, perhaps 
one of the very finest buildings of the kind to be seen 
in Europe. Bale, or Basle, is famous in connection 
with the Reformation, for here the learned Erasmus is 
is said to have " laid the egg that Luther hatched," 
and here, in the Cathedral, on the banks of the famous 
Rhine, which we here behold for the first time, he lies 
buried, and his many virtues are commemorated by a 
lengthy Latin inscription. The swiftly -flowing Rhine 
here divides the city into two parts, the larger portion 
being on the left bank, and three bridges connect the 
two portions. One of these bridges is more than 
1,000 feet long, and has a peculiarity which I once 
noticed, though not to such a great extent, in the 
bridge which connects Nashville, Tennessee, with Edge- 
field, and that is that one end of ttis bridge over the 
Rhine, at Bale, is sixty feet higher than the other. 

Basle is on the frontier of Switzerland, and is 



TOMB OF EKASJrUS. 289 

situated in a large plain between the mountain ranges 
of the Jura, the Black Forest and the Vosges, and 
borders on Germany and Alsace. Out of its 62,000 
inhabitants, 42,000 are Protestants, which shows that 
the influence of the great and learned Erasmus is 
still felt among her people. The finest streets, parks, 
gardens, etc., are those which lead to and from 
the railway stations. There is one very handsome 
monument which we visited, which was not far from 
our hotel. The monument was erected in 1872, to 
the memory of 1,300 Swiss and Confederates, who fell 
at the battle of St. Jacob, against the French, August 
26th, 1444. The monument is surmounted by a 
female figure of heroic size, impersonating Helvetia, 
and has a figure at each cornel- of the base, all warriors, 
in battle array. The inscription is in German to this 
effect ; — 

" Our souls to God, our bodies to the enemy. Here died on the 
26th August, 1444, fighting against Austria and France, 1,300 Swiss 
and Confederates, unconquered, but tried by victory." 

But by far the most interesting place in Basle is the 
ancient Minster, built from 1010-1019. The interior 
has been lately restored, and provided with a new 
organ, and offers the admirer of art and antiquity, a 
glorious harvest of architectural beauties and monu- 
ments, and which contains what is of greater interest 
by far than all the rest, the Tomb of the Great 
Erasmus, of Rotterdam, and of the three Reformers of 
Basle, Meier, QEcolompadius and Grynseus, and the 
19 



290 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Tomb of the Empress Anna of Austria, consort of 
Kudolph, of Hapsburg. But the great Erasmus is, of 
course, the chief glory of Basle, for here it was that 
he raged bitter war with the Church of Kome, and 
here may yet be seen his famous old arm-chair in the 
vestry of the Cathedral. During my stay in Europe, I 
saw the chairs of Knox, Calvin, and Erasmus, and 
passed through the city of Worms, where Luther stood 
his trial, and where he said he would go "if every tile 
on the house tops were a devil," and hence I saw 
many things of interest connected with the wonderful 
Reformation ; and perhaps a few remarks at this point 
in regard to Erasmus and Luther, may not be entirely 
out of place. 

The German poet, Goethe, says of Luther, and, 
as I think, very unjustly, and very untruely as well, 
" that he threw back the intellectual progress of 
mankind for centuries, by calling in the passions 
of the multitude to decide on subjects which ought to 
have been left to the learned;" and in saying this, the 
narrator says "that Goethe especially ' alluded to 
Erasmus, and men like him," of whom there were, 
indeed, few at that time in Europe. If Erasmus, with 
all his learning, had had the moral courage of Luther, 
the Reformation might and would have set in much 
sooner. Erasmus once wrote: *' As to me, I have no 
inclination to risk my life for truth. We have not all 
strength for martyrdom ; and if trouble come, I shall 
imitate St. Peter. Popes and Emperors must settle 



LUTHER AND ERASMUS. 291 

the creeds. If they settle them well, so much the bet- 
ter ; if ill, I shall keep on the safe side." 

Luther, however, felt that thousands thought as he 
himself thought, that it was time for him to speak 
out, and, being a stranger to fear, speak out he did, 
while Erasmus, who could write Latin as polished as 
Cicero's, temporized and held back. Luther had only 
said what Erasmus fully believed, but had not the 
courage to avow, and Luther looked to Erasmus to take 
his stand by his side, and had he only done so, then 
the Reformation would have advanced with gigantic 
strides. ** The prodigious reputation of Erasmus 
would have given the reformers influence with the 
upper and educated classes, which, by Luther's gigantic 
efforts, they had already won with the masses, and the 
Pope would have been left without an ally to the north 
of the Alps." But Erasmus, instead of throwing him- 
self into the breach like a man, preached moderation, 
both to Luther and the multitude. He settled at last 
at Basle, where the storm of the Reformation had not 
yet penetrated, and gave himself up to his books, but 
he did not find much rest or peace of mind here. The 
Catholics declared that he was as much to blame for 
the Reformation as Luther was, and the Protestants 
murmured against him, and not without reason, and 
said that if he had like, Luther, possessed the courage 
of his convictions, that the whole Catholic world must 
have accepted the Reformation, and no doubt they were 
right, as fully appears in the light of subsequent 
events. 



292 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABI^OAD. 

Erasmus was a great wit, and well was he acquainted 
with the wickedness practiced in the monasteries, and 
when Luther married an escaped nun, the Catholics 
exclaimed, that Antichrist would be born of such an 
incestuous connection. *' Nay," said Erasmus, " if 
monk and nun produce Antichrist, there must have 
been legions of Antichrists these many years." And 
yet a high authority says that without Erasmus, Luther 
would have been impossible. Still, Luther himself 
said of him that *' he took Erasmus to be the worst en- 
emy that Christ had had for years." 

From Basle, we proceeded to Strasbourg, the capital 
of Alsace, where we spent the night at a hotel not far 
from the railway station — the Hotel de I'Europe, I 
believe — and early the next morning we started to see 
the famous Cathedral, with its wonderful clock, which, 
together with the double line of the city's fortifica- 
tions, are about all that is to be seen of interest there. 
I might add, that Basle is the last town in Switzerland 
standing on the Rhine at the head of navigation. It 
was once as strict in its sumptuary laws as Geneva 
was, under the iron rule of John Calvin. Every per- 
son on the Sabbath, who went to church, was compelled 
to dress in black ; no carriages could enter the town 
after ten o'clock at night, and footmen were entirely 
forbidden. A set of officers, called Uuzichterherren, 
decided the number of dishes and the wines to be used 
at a dinner party, and also the cut and quality of all 
the clothes worn. 

Until about the beginning of the present century, 



STRASBOURG. 293 

the time-pieces of the town were kept about an 
hour in advance of all others in Europe. The legend 
which accounts for this is, that- the city was once 
delivered from a band of conspirators by the city 
clock striking one, instead of twelve and thus dis- 
concerting the conspirators, and causing them to give 
up their plot. There used to be a curious head at- 
tached to the clock, standing on the bridge, which was 
called the " Lallen-Koiiig," and the movement of the 
pendulum caused the eyes to protrude, and the tongue 
to loll out, and it was said to be making faces at Little 
Basle, on the opposite side of the Rhine. This curious 
head may now be seen among the * ' Mediaeval Collec- 
tion," in a building near the Cathedral. Here, at 
Basle, I saw a stork, the first I had seen in Europe, 
where they are held in great reverence, roosting high 
up on an old church, which was no longer used for the 
worship of God, but was actually used for an old 
second-hand furniture store. 

About 4 p. m., on Wednesday, August 8th, we took 
the train foj the celebrated fortified city of Strasbourg, 
the capital of the province of Alsace, with its famed 
Cathedral and clock, and which, after the Franco-Prus- 
sian war of 1870-71, the French gave up with so much 
reluctance to the German Empire, after having held it 
with uncontrolled sway for 200 years, that is to say 
since the days of Louis XIV. ; and with it they also 
had to give up the whole of the provinces of Alsace 
and Lorraine, two of the garden spots of France, and 
with these they had to pay, besides, an immense war 



294 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

indemnity. "We arrived there at about 9 p. m., and as 
it was too late to do anything that night, we must, per- 
force, wait until the next day to see the wondrous old 
Cathedral, which had, only tenor twelve years before, 
withstood the terrible fire of the German artillery, 
which several times set the building on fire ; but it was 
soon put out luckily, and the wonderful astronomical 
clock was not even touched, although the various parts 
of the Cathedral still show the ravages of the ruin- 
ous firing on what was once a part of their own be- 
loved fatherland. 

After having seen two or three of the great cathe- 
drals of Europe, you have seen enough to form a 
tolerable idea of them all, with the exception of Stras- 
bourg and Cologne, which are the most notable ecclesias- 
tical structures in Europe, and, therefore, I shall devote 
more attention to these two than any others, for that 
reason ; and to Master Masons, the Cathedral of Stras- 
bourg should be especially interesting, for reasons which 
I shall give a little further along. This edifice, which 
stands there in all its magnificence, and proudly rears its 
head heavenwards, a grand, though silent, testimonial 
to the living God, dates back to the days of old King 
Clovis, who founded it originally in the year 510, and 
who preceded the great Charlemagne, the famous Em- 
peror of the West ( whom Bonaparte most aspired to 
imitate), only a few centuries. 

Above the portals, the carvings are truly mag- 
nificent ; among them being equestrian statues of 
Clovis, Dagobert, and others all done in the high- 



STRASBOURG CATHEDRAL. 295 

est style of art known to those olden days, and 
in comparison with which most of our modern sculpt- 
ures seem to be but feeble relics of the " lost arts," 
indeed. The tall needle-like shrine was, for many 
years, the tallest in Christendom, if not in the 
entire world, presumptively; but since the magnifi- 
cent Cathedral of Cologne has reached its completion, 
after so many years of waiting and fruition, and has 
attained the dizzy height of 504 feet, or 100 feet 
higher than St. Paul's in London, truly must Stras- 
bourg now " pale her ineffectual fires." The front 
of the wondrous and awe-inspiring structure, with 
its two great square towers, reminds one somewhat 
of York Minster, or Westminster Abbey, though 
Strasbourg is far more imposing (as I believe I 
have before remarked, that the first view of West- 
minster Abbey is disappointing), but the huge rose- 
wood door between the towers, and the Gothic spire 
with all the beautiful carvings and tracery which cover 
the vast front in the greatest profusion *' from tur- 
ret to foundation stone," all present a sight which, 
once seen can never be forgotten, but to which only 
the brush of a Raphael, or the pen of a Milton, could 
do justice, and it is not, perchance, too much to say, 
that the task would then be, perhaps, inadequately 
accomplished. 

' You must bear in mind, that a small fee is always 
charged for entering the great European cathedrals, 
and after this is done, there is very little more to be ex- 
pended unless you choose to do so yourself. We went 



296 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

up more than 300 steps, being assisted somewhat by a 
rope which runs generally up the steep and narrow 
stairways of these cathedrals, which are often worn 
down several inches by the ceaseless tread of count- 
less thousands ; and often you will notice that the 
stones have been replaced with new ones, showing what 
a tide of humanity must have gone up and down those 
steps, and at last when completely exhausted, and we 
have about come to the conclusion to retrace our steps, 
and never try such a " fool " project again, we find our- 
selves on a platform 230 feet above the ground. Here 
are found several rooms, in which lives the custodian 
of the tower, who sells you photographs, stereoscopic 
views, etc., and also shows you some distinguished 
autographs which, carved in the dingy old walls, if 
you had been left to yourself, you w^ould not have 
been apt to discover. 

Among others, he showed me the names of two shin- 
ing lights who are dear to every German heart, and 
whose fame has reached the uttermost ends of the 
earth — Goethe and Schiller. There were hundreds of 
others carved there, but these, of course, were the most 
famous of them all, and the rest were as mere dross in 
my sight, and I did not try to burden my memory or 
my note-book with them — as for the two great geniuses 
spoken of above I needed no written tablet to recollect 
them. Of course, you obtain a grand panoramic view 
from this " coign of vantage," of the beautiful coun- 
try for miles around ; of the German Rhine, which is 
two miles from Strasbourg, and which flows 600 miles 



VIEW FROM THE SPIRE. 297 

through the heart of Europe ; and of the magnificent 
fortifications of Strasbourg, which encircle the city 
with a double row of intrenchments, and which makes 
it the strongest city in Europe, not much inferior to 
Ehrenbreitstein or Gibraltar in strategic importance — 
besides many other novel and interesting sights. 

From this point on up, which is really dangerous, 
and apt to produce dizziness, because the masonry is 
of open work, with apertures nearly large enough for 
the body to pass through, the ascent is very trying ; 
but as I had already ascended York Minster, St. Paul, 
and the Berne Cathedral, I did not intend to be balked 
by this, and I went on and on until my legs ached, my 
head swam around, and everything below me looked 
like pigmies ; but finally I reached the utmost height 
allowed to any climber, and well did I feel repaid for . 
the toilsome ascent that I had made, ^or I was now 
higher by several feet than I had ever been in my life, 
although you are not allowed to go up to the highest 
part of the spire by the authorities. From this alti- 
tude, I could see the silvery Rhine wending its wind- 
ing way for many miles, the famous Black Forest of 
Germany, the province of Baden, and the range of the 
Jura Mountains in the distance, and I also noticed a 
company of German cavalry going through their evo- 
lutions in their barracks-yard below me, and from my 
stupendous height, they seemed not so very much 
larger than the toy soldiers of my boyhood. 

It is said by those who are conversant with architect- 
ure, of whom , I regret to say, I am not, ' ' that this grand 



298 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

old structure seems to bring together all the orders of 
architecture of the Middle Ages, from the Byzantine to 
the Gothic." As in the case of most Protestant 
Cathedrals, the carvings for the most part represent 
the most prominent scenes in the life of the Savior 
of mankind, and the apostles, interspersed with 
statues of saints and warriors. The interior with its 
" dim religious light," is at once grand and impres- 
sive, the Gothic roof being supported by fourteen 
enormous pillars, which are nearly 100 feet in height, 
and the vast distance overhead reminds me more of 
York Minster, I believe, than any other cathedral which 
I have visited, and the beautiful stained glass windows, 
all representing some Scriptural subject, make the 
scene deeply impressive and beautiful. The pulpit, 
built in the year, 1486, is covered with little statues, 
beautifully carved, and is the finest thing of the kind 
I saw in Europe, except that magnificent one in the 
cathedral at Antwerp, which I shall speak of when we 
arrive at that point in the course of our travels. 

To give you some idea of these wondrous structures of 
the Middle Ages, and the gigantic labor which must have 
been required to build them, and the enormous num- 
ber of men required to do the work, and the amount 
of material required in their construction, I will state 
that this noble structure, which is one of the proudest 
monuments of the Christian religion to be found in 
the civilized world, is 525 feet long, and 195 feet wide, 
and its beautiful spire, which shows many marks of 
the cruel shells of the Germans during the last siege. 



THE FAMOUS CLOCK. 299 

rears its beautiful, needle-like, proportions in the air to 
the height of 468 feet ; but I shall tell you of one 
presently that surpasses that almost forty feet in 
height 

In a building near the cathedral are to be seen a 
great many curious relics, portions of the statuary 
which was knocked from the cathedral during the 
siege by the shot and shells of the Germans, which 
have been replaced by new statuary, etc., by the cun- 
ning master-masons of the cathedral, who form a guild 
peculiar to themselves, and of whom I shall speak pres- 
ently. All over the cathedral upon the outside, you can 
see marks of shot and shell, and see where new stone 
work has taken the place of that which was destroyed 
by the- rain of shot and shell poured upon the devoted 
city, by those to whose ancestors the place had once 
been doubly dear. The famous astronomical clock 
itself, for a wonder, received no injury, it being located 
on the ground floor of the cathedral, and on the side 
most remote from the location of the principal Ger- 
man batteries. 

I omitted to state that in the same building, where 
the relics of the siege are to be seen, are also to be 
found some portions of the clock which was in the Cathe- 
dral before the present famous one was made, and they 
have a tradition in Strasbourg, that for fear that some 
rival city might in some way obtain the services of the 
two men who made the first Strasbourg clock also to 
make one for them, they put the poor men's eyes out, 
and the consequence was, that when soon after this cruel 



300 A KNIGHT TEMPLAE ABROAD. 

deed, for some reason or other, the clock stopped, no 
one was found able to fix it for the space of 70 years. 

I was told in Strasbourg, by the custodian of the tower, 
that the reason why the Cathedral was assailed so se- 
verely was, that the French army used the steeple of 
the Cathedral as an outlook upon the location and 
movements of the German army, or it would not prob- 
ably have been so savagely assaulted by the German 
artillery. 

I did not get to see the famous clock perform at 
12 m., which is the best time to see all its won- 
drous mechanism, as our party had to leave for 
Heidelberg at 1 p. m.,but I had seen a marvelous /ac- 
simile of this clock in Maysville, Ky., only a few 
years before, and so had a pretty good idea of its per- 
formances. It is about twenty-five or thirty feet high, 
and fifteen or twenty at the base, and tells the time of 
day, the changes of the seasons, the movements of the 
planets, the eclipses of the sun and moon, besides 
having various processions of figures etc. *'It is a 
time-keeper, astronomer, almanac, mathematician, and 
musician," all in one. The most wonderful feature of 
this clock is, that it is calculated to regulate itself and 
adapt itself to the revolutions of the seasons, for an al- 
most unlimited number of years. 

The Master Masons of this Cathedral, down to this 
day, form a very exclusive society, which originated in 
the days of the great master-mason and architect of 
this wondrous building, Erwin of Steinbach, who re- 
built the nave in 1275, and had general charge of its 



FREEMASONRY AND RELIGION. 301 

construction until his death in 1318, when, it is said, 
his daughter, Sabina, who had been thoroughly taught 
in architecture by her illustrious father, succeeded him 
in the construction of the building. The Masons of 
this Cathedral held themselves aloof from other operative 
Masons, and had a code of signs known only to them- 
selves. They held their lodge meeting in the crypts 
of this Cathedral, as the Masons also did in York 
Minster, and from these meetings emanated several 
Masonic Lodges in Germany, and from this nucleus, 
Freemasonry, which is strong in Germany, as in fact 
it is in all enlightened nations, no doubt took its start ; 
and a general meeting of the Masters of the various 
lodges was held at Eatisbon in 1459, at which they 
were all united under one jurisdiction, and the Grand 
Masters then chosen, were the architects of the Cathe- 
dral at Strasbourg, and the Grand Lodge was estab- 
lished at that city. 

Who, then, shall say that Eeligion and Freemasonry 
do not go hand in hand, when Freemasonry in England 
owes its rise to the building of York Minster, and 
Freemasonry in Germany w^as coeval with the building 
of the Cathedral of Strasbourg? The Emperor Maxi- 
milian I. confirmed these Masonic arrangements October 
3rd, 1498, and Strasbourg remained the headquarters 
of the Grand Lodge of Germany, until the early part 
of the eighteenth century, when it was removed to 
Mayence, on the Rhine. 

While gazing upon this wonderful structure, and its 
still more wonderful clock, I wondered why it was that 



302 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD, 

the name of the man by whose wondrous genius that 
marvel of ingenuity and skill which is almost wortliy 
to be classed as the eighth wonder of the world, has 
never been told, that humanity might pay at least a 
passing tribute to his memory and his surpassing inge- 
nuity, but, like many another genius of the world, he 
has unfortunately died " unwept, unhonored, and un- 
sung." Passing out from the great Cathedral, on the 
right hand side of the structure, you are shown a very 
curious and venerable-looking building, which is said 
to be the oldest building in the city of Strasbourg, 
next to the venerable Cathedral itself, and tradition 
says, that the immortal Groethe lived there 100 years 
ago, when a student at the university in Strasbourg, in 
company with Herder and Stilling, themselves after- 
wards reaching no mean distinction in their native land. 
This house was said to be something like 300 years 
old, and really it looked it, and reminded me, by its 
aged appearance and look, of the little church, not 
more than twenty feet square, which I saw at Kiiss- 
nacht, Switzerland, and which bore over the door a 
'^^ skull and cross-bones^" and the year carved on it was 
1307, only 577 years ago. 

Strasbourg was founded by the Eomans under the 
name Argentoratun^ and as early as the Middle Ages, 
became one of the most prosperous and powerful of 
the free cities of the German Empire. This city has, 
for centuries, been regarded as one of the most im- 
portant strategic points in Europe, and its stupendous 
fortifications which consist of a double row of circum- 



ITS FORTIFICATIONS. 303 

vallation, with no less than fourteen strong outworks, 
are the marvel of the beholder. I rode around a por- 
tion of them in a carriage, and was struck with amaze- 
ment at their immense strength and massiveness, and 
then I understood, for the first time, why the monument 
in the Place de la Concorde, in Paris, which repre- 
sented Strasbourg, was so heavily draped in mourning 
by the French. The Fifteenth German Army Corps 
constantly occupy the city, and the French, it may 
be safely assumed, will never again put their foot as 
victors inside this famous stronghold, for — 

" A hundred men could hold the post, 
With hardihood, against a hdst." 

The city itself, although under French rule for 
nearly 200 years, or since the famous Thirty Years' 
War, remains in many respects pre-eminently German, 
both in its social customs and manners, and the general 
structure of its buildings, the people having very little 
of the French vivacity of life and manners, although 
I heard it said that most of them would prefer to 
be once more under the domination of the French. 
Strasbourg, however, is famous for one invention, which 
has revolutionized the world, and has done as much 
for it from an intellectual and literary standpoint, as 
the Reformation did for it from a religious stand- 
point, and, in fact, was an invaluable aider and abettor 
to the latter. 

I allude to the invention of the art of printing, 
the " art preservative of arts," whose great inventor, 



304 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Gutenberg, made his first experiment in this city, 
about the year 1436. There is a fine statue of 
Gutenberg to be seen here, which is covered with bass- 
reliefs, emblematic of the blessings this wonderful in- 
vention has conferred upon the human race, and 
comprises statuary representing many eminent men of 
Germany. The church of St. Thomas contains a very 
fine monument to the memory of the famous Marshal 
Saxe, erected by a grateful monarch, King Louis XV., 
in honor of his valiant marshal's achievements, and 
which is very elaborate and massive, the work requir- 
ing twenty years' labor at the hands of the artist who 
devised and finished it, and which will compare favor- 
ably, the writer thinks, with anything to he seen in 
Westminster Abbey. 



CHAPTER XL 



HEIDELBEEG TO THE KHINE. 



/ 




EXT we start for the famous old city of Heidel- 
berg, which is not more than two or three hours' 
ride from Strasbourg, where is to be seen the grand 
old Castle, perhaps the most magnificent and grandest 
ruin in all Europe ; and although the afternoon was 
rainy and inclement, still, as we had to leave for May- 



HEIDELBERG. 305 

ence on the morning train in order to take the boat 
for our trip down the " vine clad Rhine," we had not 
much more than registered our names, and had our 
quarters assigned us in the Hotel de 1' Europe, before 
we took conveyances, and soon found ourselves climb- 
ing the steep height of more than 300 feet above the 
valley of the Neckar, before we reached the grand old 
ruin which is the pride of Germany, and which has 
passed through at least a score of sieges and brutal 
ravages at the hands of her various enemies, and yet 
stands, a proud, though decayed, monument of what 
she must have been in her better days. 

We drove to the Castle first, because there is little in 
Heidelberg, except the Castle and its romantic sur- 
roundings, to interest the tourist or lover of nature. I 
had, of course, expected to see a number of the famous 
Heidelberg students sauntering around, with their 
jaunty little yellow caps, and their faces all scarred up 
from their famous and oft-repeated dueling, of which I 
had heard and read so much, but I had forgotten that it 
was during the vacation of the great university, when its 
1,000 students, who come there intent on — beer and 
meerschaum pipes, I am afraid, mainly — instead of 
other and better things, were scattered abroad to the 
four winds of heaven ; and the only students I saw 
in all Heidelberg, as far as I know, were at the depot 
when ' we arrived, and their faces were entirely free 
from hideous and disfiguring scars, but perhaps they 
had not yet been *' out," and each of them looked to 
me " as mild a-mannered man as ever scuttled a ship, 

20 



306 A KNTIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

or cut a throat." This much for my experience with 
the far-famed Heidelberg students. 

My first idea of the vast extent of this noble ruin 
had been obtained, more than ten years before I 
visited Heidelberg, from a series of steel engravings 
which were the property of a former citizen of Heidel- 
berg, who, then, lived in my native place, and when I 
saw the castle for myself, I soon realized that neither 
its wonderful extent nor its incomparable beauty had 
been exaggerated. Few towns can vie with Heidelberg 
in the beautv of its environs, and its historical interest. 
The town itself lies just at the opening of the Neckar 
Valley, which commences at Heilbronn, some thirty-six 
miles higher up the river. 

By the way, speaking of these students showing no 
signs of having even engaged in the barbarous practice 
of dueling, reminds one of what the great pulpit orator, 
Talmage, said in a recent lecture about the University 
of Heidelberg. He said of this celebrated institution of 
learning (where, if the truth were known, I suspect that 
the majority of the students who go there, ' ' thirsting for 
knowledge," are really often more thirsty /or beer and 
gore, and that they don't really do much except smoke, 
drink beer, and fight duels), that there " was not an 
institution of learning on earth, founded or supported 
hy infidels save Heidelberg , where murder is taught as a 
fine art,'''' and this reminds us of De Quincey's famous 
essay on " Murder considered as one of the Fine 
Arts." 

The famous castle, the " Alhambra of Germany," 



THE PALATINATE. 307 

is situated on a hill at the foot of the Konigstuhl, or 
"King's foot-stool," at a height of 613 German feet 
above the sea, and 313 feet above the valley of the 
river Neckar, which lies spread out beautifully far be- 
low it, and it would seem as though the castle, from its 
natural position, should have been well nigh impregnable 
against aught but treachery from within. It is built 
upon granite rocks, and was begun by the Elector Ru- 
pert I., in 1308, after the destruction of the ancient 
castle above, and from that time continued, without in- 
terruption, to be the residence of the Electors Palatine. 
During the progress of the centuries since, it has been 
fortified, enlarged, and adorned according to the taste, 
the requirements, or the purses of its royal occupants, or 
rather, more correctly speaking, of their tax-oppressed 
subjects. In 1622, when the castle was taken by the 
great Tilly, it escaped almost uninjured. 

During the famous Thirty Years' War, however, it 
was several times besieged, and in consequence suffered 
very materially, but under the Elector Charles Ludwig, 
it was completely restored to its former strength and 
beauty. After the death of Ludwig, in 1685, who was 
>the last Protestant Elector, the grand monarch, Louis 
XIV., preferred a wholly unjust and unfounded claim to 
the Palatinate of Heidelberg, and began the cruel and 
destructive war which involved not only this castle, but 
so many others in one common ruin. This cruel king 
who called himself the " grand monarch," but who was, 
in reality, one of the wickedest, most sensual and cow- 
ardly, perhaps, of all the kings of France, and who 



308 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

never or, rarely, at all events, risked his precious per- 
son upon the field of battle, or amid the dangers of the 
camp or siege, captured the castle in October, 1688, 
by his general. Count Melac, who wintered there. 

On the approach of the German armies, however, to 
the relief of Heidelberg, this barbarous general of an 
equally barbarous king, caused, in the following spring, 
the whole of the fortifications to be blown up, the 
palace to be burned down, and part of the town itself 
to be burned ; and four years later another French army 
laid waste all that had escaped their rapacious arms on 
the previous occasion. The palace was subsequently 
partially repaired, but after the departure of the Elec- 
tor Charles Philip, who transferred his residence to 
Mannheim, where was then one of the finest palaces in 
Germany, the castle of Heidelberg, was no longer the 
residence of the rulers of the Palatinate. The Elector 
Charles Theodore intended, however, to reside in the 
castle, and had already issued the necessary orders for 
its renovation and restoration, when in 1764, a portion 
of it near the Otio Heinrichs Bau was struck by light- 
ning, which set fire to the interior as well as to the adja- 
cent buildings, which did such immense damage that the 
work of restoration incontinently ceased, and from that 
day to this has never been renewed. 

The statuary and sculpture remaining, of any value 
and importance, were transferred to the Royal Palace, at 
Mannheim, and the glery of Heidelberg Castle forever 
departed, save as an interesting relic of the Middle Ages, 
and of the history of the most important epoch in the 



THE CASTLE. 309 

political life of Germany. Before entering the castle, 
you cross a draw-bridge over a deep moat, now dry, 
however, which reminds you of all the descriptions of 
castles which you have ever read in novels, etc., and 
I was forcibly reminded of the fiery interview between 
Marmion and Douglass, when Douglass' anger becomes 
uncontrollable, and he bursts forth : — 

" And dars't thou then 
To beard the lion in his den, 
The Douglass in his hall? 
No ; by St. Bryde of Bothwell, no ! 
Up, draw-bridge, groom, what, warder, hoi 
Let the portcullis fall." 

And I thought in the centuries that were past and 
gone, how many thousand mailed knights and ladies 
fair had crossed that self-same moat, and then I, at 
last, realized that I really was in the land of the chiv- 
alry and romance of the Middle Ages. 

Near the entrance to the court-yard is the castle well, 
sixty feet deep, and which is noted for its canopy, 
supported by four pillars ; said to have been taken 
from Charlemagne's palace at Rome. 

Immediately upon entering the court-yard you see 
''directly in front of you the Friedrich^s Ban, or left- 
hand wing of the castle, which is four stories in height, 
and covered with the statues of the various electors of 
Germany and with one of Charlemagne, and is of the 
Doric, Tuscan, Ionic, and Corinthian orders of architect- 
ure, thus embracing all the orders of architecture but 
the Composite, and is, consequently, correspondingly 



310 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

beautiful. This, however, is far surpassed by the right 
wing of the castle, which is known as the Otto Hein- 
rich's Bau, and is said to have been designed by the 
great Michael Angelo himself, and, as an example of 
the Renaissance architecture, is said to be the finest in 
Germany, as it may well be, considering who designed 
it ; and while it embraces only the Corinthian and 
Ionic orders, seems to be far finer and more imposing 
than the other. The facade of this building, like the 
other, ]s covered with symbolical and allegorical fig- 
ures, various gods and goddesses, eminent men of 
antiquity, etc. 

Of course, besides these are other portions of this 
stupendous castle, which we have neither the time nor 
space to describe. Adjoining the Friedrich's Bau is a 
grand stone parapet, seventy or eighty feet long, and 
thirty or forty wide, directly overlooking the river, and 
giving you a lovely view of the Neckar, which runs at 
your very feet, more than 300 feet below, and which 
falls into the Rhine, only a few miles from Heidelberg. 
Of course, the Great Tun in the vaults of the castle 
must not be overlooked , and we pay a hasty visit to it, 
and we are gradually prepared for its truly amazing 
proportions by being shown a pretty good sized hogs- 
head which, we were told, held 200 barrels of wine, 
and this made us all the more anxious to see the Great 
Tun. 

This famous tun is said to be thirty-two feet long 
and twenty-six feet high, and will contain 236,000 bot- 
tles of wine, or about 800 hogsheads. Of course you 



THE TOWEE. 311 

have to ascend to the top of it by means of steps, and 
when you get up there it looks large enough for several 
cotillions to dance upon the platform at the same time 
very easily. 

One might spend a week in viewing the remnants of 
the departed glories of this far-famed old castle, but 
time and tide, and railroad trains, wait for no man, and 
as night was coming on apace, our visit must soon be 
brought to a close ; but we did not like to leave it with- 
out visiting the grand terrace, in order to get a last 
view of the valley of the Neckar, just below us, and 
the beautiful plain of the Rhine in the distance. On 
our way there we pass out of the court-yard, and as we 
walk slowly along, looking at the stupendous propor- 
tions of this once regal fortress, we come to the fa- 
mous blown up tower, which was built by Frederick, the 
Victorious, in 1455. The tower was originally eighty- 
two feet in diameter, and the walls are said to be 
twenty feet in thickness, and the observer who notes 
the vast section of the wall which lies, all covered with 
ivy where it fell into the moat 195 years ago, has no 
reason to doubt this statement, and it gives him an 
'^ocular demonstration of the immense strength of this 
fortress prior to the invention of artillery. 

In the year 1689, the French General Melac, when 
about to evacuate the castle, ordered his sappers and 
miners to blow up this massive tower with gunpowder. 
His orders were obeyed, but the shock, instead of blow- 
ing the whole corner of the fortress to atoms, as was ex- 
pected, only split the tower (which was, as said above, 



312 A KNIGHT TEMPLAK ABROAD. 

twenty feet in thickness) in twain, leaving about half 
of the mass almost intact, while the other half fell out 
in one solid piece, and fell down into the moat, where 
it remains to this day, an object of admiration and 
astonishment to every beholder. Beyond this is the 
magnificent terrace, from which, besides the view 
alluded to above, you obtain some conception of the 
size of the castle and the immense area it covers. But 
enough of this ! We must hasten down, .and get a 
glimpse of the famous university before night falls. 

The present University buildings, which are very 
mean looking indeed, considering the great fame of the 
University, which dates back to the year 1386, and after 
the universities of Prague and Vienna, is the oldest 
in Germany, being founded in that year by the Elector 
Eupert I., are situated in the square called Ludwigs- 
platz, and were erected after the great fire of 1693, 
when that ^^ most Christian king,^^ Louis XIV., laid 
waste the Palatinate with fire and sword. The univer- 
sity started out with one rector and thr6e professors, 
but they were shortly after reinforced by two more, 
and the University was modeled after the one at Paris 
which, at that time, had obtained great fame in Eu- 
rope. The students of the university lived together 
in separate colleges, each under the supervision of his 
particular professor. The first year the students num- 
bered 500. 

This university soon became the nucleus of learn- 
ing and science in South Germany, and prospered 
greatly in the latter half of the sixteenth, and the be- 



THE UNIVERSITY. 313 

ginning of the seventeenth century under the three 
benign Electors Otho Henry, Frederic III., and Fred- 
erick IV., and under their kindly ministrations the 
university became the chief reformed seat of learning 
in Germany. Of course, during the Thirty Years' War, 
and the consequent barbarous devastation of the Pala- 
tinate by the French, the university survived with 
difficulty, its revenues being largely depleted, and the 
numbers of its students vastly diminished. Its devel- 
opment at the beginning of the present century, during 
which it has become the most famous university of 
Europe, Oxford and Cambridge, perhaps, excepted, is 
largely owing to Charles Frederick of Baden, who, in 
1802, added largely to its field of usefulness by the 
accession of eminent professors, and large and valua- 
ble scientific collections. 

The library is one of the largest, as well as most rare 
and valuable in Europe, containing, as it does, 
300,000 volumes, 70,000 pamphlets, 3,000 M8S., and 
1,000 diplomas. These figures we obtain from the 
guide-book, as the hours of admission (from ten to 
twelve) did not suit our plans, and, if the hours had 
been all right, the library was not, as it is mainly 
food for antiquarians and scientists to which I did not 
belong by a large majority ; so that I did not inspect 
this wonderful museum of literary curiosities at all — 
and, besides, one would need to be somewhat of a 
linguist to decipher almost any one of the countless 
thousands of MSS., etc., which are to be found stored 
in that vast literary treasure house. 



314 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

The next morning, at six a. m. we were up and at 
breakfast, in order to take an early train for Mayence 
on the Ehine, whence we were to set sail down that 
river so famed in song and story, in order to reach 
Cologne that night, which was on Friday, August 18th, 
1883. Between Heidelberg and Mayence there is little 
of interest to engage the attention of the passing 
traveler, except the famous old city of Worms, which 
is, and will forever be, immortal because of Martin 
Luther and the part it played in the grandest epoch 
known to humanity, next to the birth of the Savior of 
mankind — the wondrous Eef ormation of the sixteenth 
century. 

To me the place was impregnated with the won- 
derful work of the man Luther, the tomb of whose 
learned coadjutor and ally, Erasmus, I had so recently 
seen at Basle, and I could but think that these two 
wonderful men had more nearly moved the world than 
ever Archimides could have done, had he even found 
the fulcrum for his boasted lever. I am strongly 
tempted here to quote a few sentences from an elo- 
quent writer on this subject, Headley, the historian. 
He says of Worms : — 

" It is now half desolate, but I looked upon it with 
the profoundest emotions. Luther rose before me with 
that determined brow and strange, awful eye of his, 
before which the boldest glance went down. I seemed 
to behold him as he approached the thronged city. 
Every step tells on the fate of a world, and on the 
single will of that single man rests the whole 



STATUE OF LUTHER. 315 

Eeformation. But he is firm as truth itself, and in 
the regular beatings of that mighty heart, and the 
unfaltering step of that fearless form, the nations read 
their destiny. The Ehine is lined with battle-fields, 
and mighty chieftains lie along its banks ; but there 
never was the march of an army on its shores, not even 
when Bonaparte trod there with his strong legions, so 
sublime and awful as the approach of that single man 
to Worms. The fate of a nation hung on the tread of 
one, that of the world on the other. Crowns and 
thrones were carried by the former, the freedom of 
mankind by the latter." 

There is to be seen here a magnificent statue of the 
great Eeformer, who was but the son of an humble 
miner, which occupied about nine years in the making, 
and which cost $85,000. The statue of Luther is 
eleven feet in height, holding in one hand the Bible, 
and on his face emblazoned his doctrine of ' ' Justifi- 
cation by Faith," for which he risked his life con- 
stantly for years, and which is surrounded by various 
eminent Eeformers, who had contributed in some way 
to further the aims of the great Eeformer, notably 
J6hn Huss, who fell, a martyr to his faith, one hundred 
years prior to Luther, in spite of his safe conduct. 

As this man Luther has played such a magnificent 
part in the drama of Christianity, perhaps a few pass- 
ing remarks upon his life and character, based upon 
a study of the man as portrayed at the hands of one 
of our historians (Froude), may not be entirely out 
of place at this point. Luther's first open and undis- 



316 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

guised opposition to the Church of Kome was based 
upon his honest indignation against Pope Leo X., 
who actually proposed, by the sale of indulgences at 
the hands of the infamous Dominican monk, Tetzel, 
to complete that grand temple to the living God, which 
had been designed by Michael Angelo, St. Peter's, at 
Rome. Luther appealed to the archbishop of May- 
ence against Tetzel' s infamous practices, but as the 
archbishop was to share in the spoils, of course 
Luther's appeal came to naught. His strong common 
sense showed him that he must then appeal to the 
hearts and consciences of the sturdy German people, 
whom he felt to be with him, and he nailed his famous 
protest against Tetzel on the church door at Witten- 
burg; and in his ninety-five propositions, he challenged 
the Catholic Church to defend successfully the practice 
of indulgences. 

Finally, as Luther firmly stood his ground, al- 
though his life was continually in danger, he 
was formally excommunicated, and the Elector Fred- 
erick, of Saxony, was ordered to surrender up the 
criminal ; but the Elector, though at great risk to him- 
self and the country of which he was ruler, very much 
to his credit, refused to give him up. Just about this 
time, Charles V., who was an unblushing creature of 
the Pope, became Emperor of Germany, and although 
Luther had the press on his side, he was in very great 
danger. About this time, too, the Pope issued a sec- 
ond bull, condemning Luther and his works, but the 
plucky little monk only made answer by contemptu- 



LUTHER AT WOEMS. 317 

ously burning the bull in the great square at Wit- 
tenberg. 

At last came the awful summons in April, 1521. 
The Diet of the Empire assembled at Worms, 
and Luther was put upon his defense before his im- 
placable enemy, Charles V. Luther knew that he was 
in perhaps the greatest danger he had ever been in his 
life, and friends advised him not to go, but he was 
bold as a lion, and then it was he made his famous 
declaration that he " would go to Worms, if there were 
as many devils there, as there were tiles on the roofs 
of the houses." The historian says : " No more nota- 
ble spectacle had been witnessed in this planet for 
many a century — not, perhaps, since a greater than 
Luther stood before the Eoman Procurator. There, 
on the raised dais, sat the sovereign of half the world. 
There on either side of him stood the archbishops, the 
ministers of state, the princes of the empire, gathered 
together to hear and judge the son of a miner who 
had made the world ring with his name." Before 
that august assemblage, he made his famous defense of 
his objectionable doctrines, refusing to retract his 
alleged heresy, and ended with the notable words : 
" Here I stand, I can not act otherwise ; God help me, 
Amen." 

Now, as to the great and remarkable contrast afforded 
between the lives of Luther and the learned Erasmus ; 
although Luther often sneered and jeered at him, and 
never did him justice for his part in the great work which 
he accomplished by his wonderful learning and writ- 



318 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

ings, yet Erasmus more than once, by his kindly inter- 
position, released Luther from the most imminent and 
deadly peril, and each was the counterpart and comple- 
ment of the other, and, although they knew it not at 
the time, each was essentially necessary, and essen- 
tially useful to the other. The great difference was in 
the way the two men were reared, and in the way they 
consequently looked at these things ; Erasmus, a man 
of the world, of letters, and polite literature, while 
Luther was just the reverse, the son of a miner, 
brought up in poverty and obscurity, hence, Erasmus 
could easily gloss over an unpleasant thing by a little 
untruth if necessary, while Luther hated anything 
savoring of untruth as the devil is said to hate holy 
water. And yet Luther was possessed of one of the 
greatest minds the world has ever seen, and with it a 
courage which knew not fear, and an indomitable will 
and untiring energy, or else the Reformation had never 
been an accomplished fact, or, at any rate, retarded , per- 
haps, for centuries. 

Froude, the historian, says of Luther that, ** he 
was less subtle, less learned than Erasmus, but in 
mother wit, in elasticity, in force, and in imagina- 
tive power, he was as able a man as ever lived, and 
he created the German language as an instrument 
of literature." He further says that " in Luther, the 
belief in God was a certainty, while in Erasmus, it was 
only a high probability : " and this statement is enough 
in itself to account for the wonderful industry and earn- 
estness of Luther, as compared with the apparent luke- 



ERASMUS AND LUTHER. 319 

warmness and timidity of Erasmus, which kept him 
from attempting to turn waters out of their old chan- 
nels, and institute a social revolution, a task for which 
he himself frankly confessed that he was not fitted, 
either by nature or inclination. 

The great trouble with these two amongst the great- 
est of the mighty geniuses, who have left their im- 
pressions upon the world's history for all time, was 
that they misunderstood and misconstrued each other, 
and each other's motives ; and I am fully persuaded 
that Erasmus came much nearer to understanding 
Luther, and respecting him accordingly, and doing 
him more ample justice, than Luther did towards 
understanding and appreciating Erasmus, for no- 
where in the writings of Erasmus, do we find such bitter 
things said about Luther, as we find profusely strewn 
through Luther's writings against the ally, whose able 
controversial pamphlets, perhaps the strongest ever 
written, were spread all over Europe, and without the 
aid of which, it is not too much to say, that Luther's 
progress would have been materially impeded, if not 
entirely brought to an end ; but Luther does not seem 
to have had the magnaminity to give Erasmus credit 
for his immense assistance in the labors of the Refor- 
mation in this way. 

Luther's wonderful success in the Reformation, 
which made him, perhaps, forget that he was but one 
spoke in the wheel, albeit the leading and strongest 
one, must have turned his head, surely, else he had 
never said what follows against his great coadjutor and 



320 . A KNIGHT TEJrPLAR ABROAD. 

ally, in the grand work of the Eeformation — for his 
language certainly has anything but the sound of Chris- 
tian forbearance, and humility. He goes on thus : 
"All you who honor Christ, I pray you Jiate Erasmus. 
He is a scoffer and a mocker. He speaks in riddles, 
and jests at popery and Gospel, and Christ and God, 
with his uncertain speeches. He might have served 
the Gospel, if he would, but, like Judas, he has be- 
trayed the Son of Man with a kiss. He is not with 
us and he is not with our foes; and I say with Joshua, 
'Choose whom ye will serve.' He thinks we should 
trim to the times, and hang our cloaks to the 
wind. He is himself his own first object; and as he 
lived, he died. I take Erasmus to be the worst enemy 
that Christ has had for a thousand years. Intellect 
does not understand religion, and when it comes to 
the thinojs of God it laughs at them. He scoffs at 
Lucian, and by and by he will say: — 

" * Behold, how are these among the saints whose life 
we counted for folly ! ' 

" I bid you, therefore, take heed of Erasmus. He 
treats theology as a fool's jest, and the Gospel as a 
fable good for the ignorant to believe." 

I will not pursue the matter any further, but will 
simply call my reader's attention to the fact that this 
bitter attack was made upon Erasmus while he was in 
his grave, and whence no response could well be made, 
showing that Luther forgot, for the time at any rate, 
not only his Christian character, but that good old 
adage, De mortuis nil nisi bonum, as well; but as Em- 



MAYENCE. 321 

met, the Irish patriot, said that, as for himself, he 
would " let posterity write his epitaph," so will we 
do the same by Erasmus, resting fully assured that 
" when the Lord cometh to make up his jewels," Eras- 
mus will shine with no less diminished luster than will 
-Martin Luther. 

From Worms, the railway to Mayence winds along 
the bank of the Ehine most of the way, but it is here 
a dull uninteresting stream, in fact, anything but the 
most beautiful river in Europe, and you have a feel- 
ing of disappointment at the sight, but you find out 
afterwards that the scenery of the Rhine is between 
Mayence and Cologne. 

You feel more than consoled for your previous dis- 
appointment by the undoubted grandeur of the scenes 
which meet your eye from the deck of the steamer, 
which here, for once at least, moves all too fast for 
the usually impatient tourist. The Rhine has such a 
swift current, as we found out afterwards, that there 
is a difference of about five hours in making the trip 
up and down between Mayence and Cologne, a distance 
of less than 120 miles, and we envied the other por- 
tion of our party who ascended the Rhine, instead of 
descending it, and who were permitted to gaze upon 
its beauties for several hours longer than we, who, less 
favored, were forced to go the other way; but we 
must say a few words of Mayence yet, before we are 
fairly embarked upon this, perhaps, most famous river 
of the world. 

Here, again, we come across Gutenberg (called 

21 



322 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

also Gensfleisch), whose acquaintance we first made 
at Strasbourg, which gave him a monument be- 
cause he made his first experiments there, with his 
wonderful invention of movable types, which have 
probably done more for humanity than any other in- 
vention that the world has ever known, or perhaps ever 
will know. He was a native of this place, and it is 
said that the first printing office which he occupied 
there, between the years 1443 and 1450, was still to 
be seen a few years since. His wonderful invention 
preceded the Reformation about eighty years, and there 
is more than a mere coincidence in the fact that the 
Reformation was only accomplished nearly a century 
after this incomparable invention ; and who shall say 
that it could have been accomplished as early as the 
sixteenth century at all without the invaluable aid of 
this tremendous engine of civilization, whose powers 
are well nio;h incalculable in the assistance it has fur- 
nished in the progress of the human race onward and 
upward. 

The learned Dr. Samuel Johnson, who was a keen 
observer of mankind, used to say, and with very 
much truth, the examples of Greece and Rome, to the 
contrary notwithstanding, " that there could have been 
no civilization before the invention of printing." 

Another well known writer says on this subject that 
*' the first printed leaf that Gensfleisch" (or Guten- 
berg, as he is better known in these modern days), 
"held in his hand, was a richer token to the despair- 
ing world than the olive leaf which the dove bore back 



BRIDGE OF BOATS. 323 

to the ark from the subsiding deluge. Men, as they 
roam by the Khine, talk of old Schomberg, and 
Bliicher, and Ney, and heroes of martial renown, but 
John G-ensfleisch and Martin Luther are the two might- 
iest men that lie along its shores." And yet he, too, 
forgets Erasmus, who by the aid of this mighty engine, 
scattered his printed broadsides over Europe, for 
which even to this day Martin Luther gets all the 
credit. 

Most tourists through this part of Europe usually 
either embark or disembark at Mayence, because the 
fine scenery of the river begins here and extends for 
seventy-five to one hutidred miles toward Cologne, and 
its banks are lined with the ruins of robber castles, 
convents, and beautiful cities and villages, all rich in 
historical and legendary associations, equal fully to 
anything which Rome, " that Niobe of nations," can 
proudly boast. Here I saw the first bridge of boats 
upon the Rhine, although we saw others between May- 
ence and Cologne, and it interested me greatly. This 
bridge, I should judge, was more than a quarter of a 
mile long, and is made of boats all anchored with their 
bows up stream, and then a solid flooring is laid down 
upon them like any ordinary bridge. I saw them swing 
out a section several times to let steamers and other 
vessels pass through, and I believe the steamer we 
took our passage on was anchored above this bridge, 
so that we had to pass through this bridge of boats, 
also, when we set sail from Mayence. 

There is an old cathedral here, built in the tenth cen- 



324 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

tury, which we visited, but as we have, perhaps, writ- 
ten ad nauseam on that subject, we will save ourselves 
for the most famous one of Europe, which we have yet 
to see at Cologne, and recruit our exhausted powers for 
one tremendous final effort in writing up that. 

Mayence is famous as having taken the first effectual 
steps towards breaking up the robbers who infested 
the Ehine, building and inhabiting most of those cas- 
tles, during the Middle Ages, which we view to-day 
with such vivid interest, and who made every passing 
traveler pay tribute to their infamous demands. 
During the Middle Aares it is said that there were no 
less than thirty-two of these robber strongholds on the 
Ehine between Mayence and Cologne, and after pass- 
ing down the Ehine, as I think I must have seen some- 
thing like fifty castles of all kinds and sizes, and in all 
conditions of decay, it seems to me that he must have 
been a bold sailor, indeed, who essayed to travel in 
those days in this now by far most famous portion of 
this justly and widely celebrated stream. 

Here it was that the famous Hanseatic league was 
formed by the Hanse towns, and which resulted in free- 
ing the commerce of the Ehine from the heavy and 
unjust tolls and restrictions at the hands of these bold 
brigands of the river, which was indeed a good and 
noble work ; and yet when we look at the matter from 
an cesthetic standpoint, the robbers who reared these 
once proud and haughty castles have done us a good 
turn, for without them, would not the Ehine lose all its 
glory and its sestheticism, and be like any other com- 



ANCIENT CASTLES. 325 

monplace river of Europe? Here, I hope, I shall be 
pardoned for quoting a few of Lord Byron's beautiful 
verses concerning these robber chieftains, whom he 
invests with a halo of romance, trying, as only he can, 
to make you forget, if possible, that these were, as a 
rule, villains and cut-throats of the vilest type, and, 
indeed, with the wondrous witchery of his verse, he all 
but succeeds : — 

" True wisdom's world will be 



Within its own creation or in thine, 
Maternal nature! for who teems like thee? 

Thus on the banks of thy majestic Ehine 

There Harold gazes on a work divine, 
A blending of all beauties, streams and dells, 

Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain vine, 
And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells 
From grey but leafy walls, where ruin greenly dwells. 

"And there they stand, as stands a lofty mind, 

"Worn, but unstooping to the baser crowd, 
All tenantless, save to the crannying wind. 

Or holding dark communion with the cloud ; 

There was a day when they were young and proud, 
Banners on high and battles passed below; 

But they who fought are in a bloody shroud, 
And those which waved are shredless dust ere now, 
And the bleak battlements shall bear no future blow. 

" Beneath those battlements, within those walls. 

Power dwelt amidst her passions ; in proud state 
Each robber-chief upheld his armed halls, 

Doing his evil will, nor less elate 

Than mightier heroes of a longer date. 
What want these outlaw conquerors should have 

But history's purchased page to call them great, — 
A wider space, an ornamental grave? 
Their hopes were not less warm, their souls were full as brave. 



326 A KNIGHT TEMPLAE ABROAD. " 

•' But thou, exulting and abounding river, 

Making thy waves a blessing as they flow 
Through banks whose beauty would endure forever 

Could man but leave thy bright creations so, 

Nor its fair promise from the surface mow 
With the sharp scythe, — then to see 

Thy valley of sweet waters were to know 
Earth proved like heaven; and to seem such to me 
Even now what wants thy stream that it should Lethe be? 

"A thousand battles have assailed thy banks, 

But these and half their fame have passed away, 
And slaughter heaped on high his weltering ranks; 

Their very graves are gone, and what are they? 

Thy tide washed down the blood of yesterday I 
And all was stainless, and on thy clear stream 

Glossed with its dancing light the sunny ray 
But o'er the blackened memory's blighting dream 
Thy waves would vainly roll, all sweeping as they seem," 

I confess that I approach with no little trepidation 
this portion of my self-allotted task — that of attempt- 
ing to give a faint idea of the glories of this beautiful 
stream, which runs for six hundred miles through the 
heart of Europe, and for the possession of whose 
banks, and adjacent territory, the Ehine itself has 
almost been crimsoned with the blood of slaughtered 
thousands, and with whose every castle, and almost, you 
might say, with every foot of whose banks either 
some legend or historical fact is somehow indissolubly 
blended, which invests it with a still greater interest to 
the passing stranger, — but like one who hesitates to 
jump into a cold bath, but feels better as soon as the 
ice is broken, we will enter upon our task at once with- 
out any further preliminary remarks. 



RHINE STEAMERS. 327 

Our steamer was a small, stuffy, uncomfortable 
affair, which, as compared with one of the beautiful 
floating palaces of our own Hudson River, was hardly 
to be mentioned in the same breath, but at that partic- 
ular time I cared very little for that, and would have 
been perfectly contented to be allowed to float slowly 
down the beautiful river on one of our Western flat- 
boats, or, better still, on one of those immense rafts of 
lumber, which, at certain seasons of the year, are 
floated down this lovely stream, and which would have 
given me something like ample time to survey the 
wondrous scene. However, there are two or three 
steamers, out of the one hundred which plough this 
historic stream, which are much finer and larger than 
the one on which we took passage, one of which we 
met coming up the Rhine, being called the "Kaiser 
Wilhelm," in honor of the present aged Emperor of 
Germany, which was a " double-decker," and looked 
quite respectable and something like a steamer, but 
still quite far inferior to our own luxurious and large 
passenger vessels. To give you some idea of the im- 
mense travel on the Rhine, it is stated that the number 
of passengers carried on these vessels, large and small, 
has, for a number of years past, exceeded a million 
annually. 

For a few miles below Mayence you see nothing of 
special interest, as the banks of the river here are 
rather flat and uninteresting, and the islands which 
here rather thickly line the river bed, do not vary 
the prospect much, but this is, perhaps, the widest part 



328 A KNiaHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

of the stream, which is nowhere, as a rule, more than 
2,000 feet wide, but though narrow generally, is usu- 
ally very deep. 

About the first place that attracts our attention now, 
is the famous Schloss-Johannisberg, which is especially 
noted for its fine wines, we now being in the heart of 
the wine districts of the Ehine, the Johannisberg being 
considered par excellence^ the best. 

This magnificent chateau is situated on a beautiful 
eminence 340 feet out above the river, and the banks all 
along at this point are teeming with the vine. This 
chateau was erected more than one hundred years ago, 
on the site of an old monastery of the Benedictine 
Order, which dated back to the year 1106. 

In 1802, this noble castle became the property of the 
Prince of Orange, and in 1807, Napoleon having taken 
possession of all this portion of Germany with his vic- 
torious legions, after thoroughly humbling Austria, 
Prussia, and Russia, in a series of brief, though brill- 
iant campaigns, which have no equal in history, pre- 
sented this noble castle to Marshal Kellerman, the 
famous commander of the French cuirassiers; and in 
1816, the Emperor of Austria, ** coming to his own 
again," after the fall of Napoleon the Great, bestowed 
it on Prince Clemens, of Metternich, and his son, 
Prince Richard Metternich, is the present owner. 

The famous vineyards of this castle, although they 
only amount to about forty acres in extent, yet pro- 
duce such excellent wine that the income from this 
source alone, is about $40,000 per annum, or the as- 



A GRAND MONUMENT. 329 

tonishing sum of $1,000 per acre, so rare is the 
vintage. At Johannisberg, a good bottle of the Schloss 
*' cabinet" wine can not be purchased under twenty 
marks ($5), but you can get a bottle of inferior vint- 
age, also labelled Johannisberg, for one-fifth that 
price. But the assertion of the wine merchants that 
the flower of the vineyards of Prince Metternich, gets 
into the hands of the trade is perfectly absurd, as the 
best brands are, of course, almost invariably retained 
for certain imperial and royal cellars, and for a few 
favored customers. 

Not far from the chateau Johannisberg we reach 
the Niederwald, a wooded hill, nearly a thousand feet 
high, its southern slopes crowned with vineyards, and 
not far from this, and no great distance from *' Bin- 
gen, dear Bingen on the Rhine," on a high point on 
the right bank of the Rhine, is to be seen one of the 
grandest monuments to be found in all Germany, which 
was erected to commemorate the restoration and unity 
of the German Empire, and also as a memento to the 
German dead, who fell in the Franco-Prussian war 
of 1870-71, when the French Empire became among 
the things that were. The grand old Emperor William 
laid the corner-stone of this imposing battle monument 
in 1877, and some idea of the size of the grand and 
massive structure may be obtained from the fact that 
the base of the monument is seventy-eight feet high, 
then above this, of course, comes all the ornamentation 
of figures conspicuous in the civic and military life of 
Germany, then the battle scenes, etc , and then to 



330 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

crown all, the colossal statue of Germania is thirty-three 
feet in height. This grand monument to the glories of 
the German Empire, which never shone more resplen- 
dent than at the present time, cost $300,000, and was 
inaugurated last September (1883), with the most 
imposing ceremonies, in the presence of countless 
thousands, among them, some of the most eminent 
functionaries and crowned heads of Europe. I appre- 
hend that the only monument in the world at all 
approaching this in grandeur, will be Bartholdi's 
statue of ' ' Liberty Enlightening the World," which will 
soon shine resplendent on Bedloe's Island, in our own 
beautiful harbor of New York. 

Next, we came to the pretty city of Bingen, which 
has been immortalized in the beautiful verses, with 
which every student is more or less familiar, written 
by the late Lady Sterling-Maxwell, then the Hon. 
Caroline Norton, of the French soldier born at " Bin- 
gen dear Bingen on the Rhine," but whose life blood 
was ebbing fast away, under the hot sun of Algeria, 
beginning thus : — 

" A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers; 
There was lack of woman's nursing, there was dearth 
of woman's tears " — 

but, who as he lies in the last agonies of the grim de- 
stroyer, entreats his pitying comrade to carry back his 
*' token and his sign," saying: — 

" I dreamed I stood with her, and saw the yellow sunlight shine, 
On the vine-clad hills of Bingen, fair Bingen on the Rhine." 



MOUSE TOWER. 331 

And this beautiful poem has, no doubt, much to do 
with the great interest which always attaches to " Bin- 
gen on the Rhine." 

Near Bingen, is the famous Mouse Tower of the 
wicked Bishop Hattlo, in the midst of the waves where 
he could stop all passing vessels, and like the robber 
chieftains, although an archbishop, he played the rob- 
ber, too, and near him stood the castles of Shrenfels 
and Rheinstein. About the time he became the arch- 
bishop of Mayence, a great famine fell upon his bish- 
opric, and he being a very wicked and avaricious man, 
bought up all the corn of the country, and sold it to 
his starving parishoners, at the most exorbitant prices. 
One day, a vast crowd of hungry people came to this 
wicked man of God, (?) who dwelt in a magnificent 
palace, and asked in Heaven's name, for just a little 
of his precious corn, and the cunning bishop told them 
to go to one of his granaries and wait there, and he 
would find them food. They did so, and the cruel 
man shut up the doors upon them, and burned them 
all up alive, and then rejoiced at the awful sufferings 
he had caused. But wait : — 

"The mills of the gods grind slowly, 
But they grind exceeding fine." 

The fire drove from the barn thousands of rats, which 
immediately made their way to the bishop's palace, 
destroying every thing they came across, for they were 
hungry, too, and although they were killed by thou- 
sands, yet the wicked bishop, now seeing that he had 



332 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

indeed called down the vengeance of Heaven upon his 
guilty head, fled to his strong tower in the midst of the 
Khine, which he hoped would saved him from a horrible 
death. But all in vain ; the mice swam the river in 
countless hordes, dug under the walls, and entered the 
very stronghold itself, and as Southey says : — 

** Whetted their teeth against the stones, 
And then they picked the bishop's bones." 

Right near here is the noted old castle of Ehrenfels, 
built in 1210, and formerly a stronghold of the bish- 
ops of Mayence, and at this point begins the famous 
" Ehine Gorge," where the cliffs become more steep 
and precipitous, and the gloomy old ruins come upon 
you so fast that you have not time to hastily read the 
story of one grand old ivy-covered ruin before an- 
other one presents itself to your bewildered gaze, and 
there is really an " embarrassment of riches," and the 
castle market is decidedly glutted. Next you see the 
astonishingly beautiful castle Rheinstein, which is 
perched two hundred and fifty feet above the river, 
and has been entirely restored to all its ancient glory 
of pinnacles and turrets, and is used as a residence for 
Prince Frederick of Prussia. As we passed swiftly 
by, we saw a company of brilliantly uniformed Prus- 
sian soldiers near the battlements, and some hand- 
somely dressed ladies waved their handkerchiefs to us 
from the turret of the beautiful fortress, and heard 
the garrison band discoursing the gayest melodies. 

Next we pass in quick succession, Sooneck and Furs- 



ROBBER STRONGHOLDS. 333 

tenberg, both once robber strongholds, and then we 
arrived at the castle of Stahleck, once the chief resi- 
dence of the Counts Palatine. Next we pass the little 
stone fortress in the midst of the stream known as the 
Pfalz. 

From Bingen, all the way to Bacharach, is, without 
exaggeration, one almost uninterupted succession of 
ruined castles and fortresses, most of them being 
those ancient robber-strongholds of which so much 
has been said. No wonder that this river is known in 
poetry and song as the " castellated Ehine." 

Soon we see Bacharach, which is in the midst of a 
very fine wine district, as the name implies, which is 
derived from two Latin words, BaccJii ara (altar of 
Bacchus), which is, of course, a very appropriate 
name. On the hill high above the town are to be seen 
the ruins of a fine specimen of Gothic architecture 
called Werner's Church, and still higher up than this the 
castle of Stahleck. High upon the cliifs above Pfalz 
is to be seen the still beautiful castle of Gutenfels. 
The town, Caub, above which the castle stands, is noted 
as the place where Blucher crossed the Ehine on a 
pontoon boat on the 1st of January, 1814, in hot pur- 
suit of the demoralized French army in its awful re- 
treat from Russia. 

Near Caub, is the ruined Schonberg, or Schomberg 
Castle, which was the birthplace of the illustrious fam- 
ily of that name, and of which stock came the famous 
Marshal Schomberg, the favorite general of King 
William III. , who came over to England as the Prince 



334 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

of Orange (his wife was the Princess Mary the 
daughter of King James II. )» from Holland, in 1688, 
and drove the wicked popish King James II. from 
the throne, which he had so disgraced. Marshal 
Schomberg was killed at the^ battle of the Boyne, in 
July, 1690, by a cannon ball, while fighting against 
King James in Ireland. Near this fortress are seven 
rocks in the stream called the Seven Sisters, and al- 
lude to seven lovely sisters of the house of Schom- 
berg, who were great flirts, and, while running away 
from their importunate suitors, with whom they had 
been playing fast and loose, in a boat on the Rhine, 
were drowned in a storm, and soon after, as the legend 
says, those seven rocks presented themselves above the 
surface, as a direful warning to all prudes and flirts 
ao-ainst triflino; with the honest affections of man- 
kind. 

We must not forget all this time that besides the many 
steamers and vessels that we meet on our way down, a 
railway runs along either bank of the river, and we 
hear the shriek of the locomotive, and see atrain flit by 
us every now and then, either going up or down this 
haunted stream, and we are transported with a sudden 
shock, as it were, from our day dreams about the Mid- 
dle Ages, with whose associations we are on every hand 
surrounded, all at once into the stir and bustle of the 
nineteenth century. Such are the strange and sudden 
transitions that this wonderful stream affords, that it 
is no wonder that the traveler almost imagines himself, 
for the moment, the victim of some weird tale of 



RHINE SCENERY. 335 

enchantment. And the strange variations of the 
kaleidoscope are not more marvelous. 

But why particularize so much, when the genius of 
one man has, with a master hand, combined, as it were, 
in a single verse, all the most striking features of this 
river, for whose beauties it seems as though no epithet 
could really be too extravagant. 

" The negligently grand, tlie fruitful bloom 
Of coming ripeness, the white city's sheen, 
The rolling stream, the precipice's gloom, 
The forest's growth, and Gothic walls between, 
The wild rocks shaped as they had turrets been 
In mockery of man's art;, and these withal 
A race of faces happy as the scene, 
Whose fertile bounties here extend to all 
Still springing o'er thy banks, though empires near them fall." 

Not far from the Seven Sisters spoken of above, 
which will pass very well for the Scylla and Charybdis 
of Virgil, the river narrows very considerably, and 
there is quite a whirlpool which, however, does not 
materially affect the motion of our steamer, and we 
see the famous Lorelei, a black and precipitous rock, 
which here rises to the height of 433 feet above the 
Ehine ; and to a traveler descending the river it is said 
that the profile of the rocks present something very 
similar to that of Napoleon I., as the Salisbury crags 
at Edinboro' are said to make the profile of the Duke 
of Wellington, but, unfortunately, I did not hear this 
rumor soon enough to verify it myself. This is the 
rock where the beautiful Circe dwelt, whom the German 



336 A KUIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

poet, Heine, has made immortal in his beautiful poem, 
and who, by her charms and blandishments, enticed sus- 
ceptible and unwary fishermen and sailors to their dis- 
traction in the rapids beneath, and the legend of the 
Siren Lorelei is one of the most beautiful of all con- 
nected with the Ehine. 

Just as we landed at the little town opposite, a rail- 
way train ran shrieking into a tunnel directly under 
the huge rock, and again fact and fancy came into 
strange opposition to each other. 

There is said to be a grotto or cavern in this rock 
which will repeat an echo fifteen times, and here the 
river is narrowest and deepest, being at this point 
about seventy-five feet in depth. 

Now we come to the magnificent ruin of Kheinfels, 
377 feet above the Rhine, and by far the largest and 
most imposing ruin on the river, reminding me more 
of Heidelberg, both by its situation and immense pro- 
portions, than any other castle of Europe. 

This castle was founded in 1245, and was, by far, 
the strongest and most important of all the robber- 
castles, and about ten years afterward the Hanseatic 
League, made up of twenty-six Rhine towns and cities, 
laid siege to it with a large army for more than a year, 
but all to no purpose. Again, in the seventeenth cen- 
tury, it was defended successfully against a French 
army of 24,000 men, but in 1794 the French revolu- 
tionary army captured it, and afterwards blew it up, 
and now it is truly a picturesque ruin, of vast extent, 
as it lies outlined against the sky. To give you some 



THE TWIN CASTLES. 337 

idea of what a castle on the Khine would bring in the 
market : it is said that this vastest of them all only 
brought $500 when sold about half a century ago. 

Not far below here, we see the famous twin castles 
of Sterrenberg and Liebenstein, called the " Brothers," 
from a very pretty love story connected with them, 
which I have a mind to give for the benefit of such of 
my readers as have a vein of romance in their composi- 
tions: — 

Two brothers, Conrad and Heinrich, were desperately 
in love with their foster sister, Hildegarde, who, of 
course, was as beautiful as a dream. Heinrich, un- 
willing to contend with his only brother for the prize, 
tore himself away, and went off to the Crusades. 
The kind old father, Von Boppard, built the castle of 
Sterrenberg for the nuptials of Conrad and Hilde- 
garde, but died before the marriage had taken place. 
Soon, like most men, not caring for what they can ob- 
tain by simply reaching forth their hands, Conrad 
grows cold, and finally goes off to the Crusades to 
"participate" in the warlike achievements of his 
brother Heinrich leaving behind him the peerless Hil- 
degarde to pine away and die. 

Suddenly Conrad returned to the castle of Lieben- 
stein with a Grecian bride, which outraged the wretched 
Hildegarde all the more, and she pined away in soli- 
tude. One day Heinrich, the absent brother, hearing 
of his brother's base treatment of Hildegarde, comes 
home and challenges him to single combat. Hilde- 
garde comes between them Just as they cross their 

22 



338 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

swords, and are about to imbue their hands in fraternal 
blood, and begs them to be reconciled, which they re- 
luctantly consent to ; and then the broken-hearted 
Hildegarde, instead of marrying the noble Heinrich, as 
she should have done, woman-like retired to the con- 
vent of Bornhofen, at the foot of the rock on which 
the castles stood. Soon Conrad's wife proved faith- 
less to him, as, in the eternal fitness of things, she 
should have done, and Conrad repairs to his noble 
brother, Heinrich, for consolation, and henceforth 
they live together in unity, as brethren should, in their 
paternal castle of Liebenstein, while poor Hildegarde 
spent the rest of her lonely life as a nun. 

Many of the cities and towns lying along the Ehine 
still preserve their old walls more or less intact, and 
especially is this the case with Boppard, where a por- 
tion of the wall, 1,050 feet long on one side, and 490 
feet in another direction, is still to be seen, which is 
supposed to date from the reign of the Roman Em- 
peror Valentinian I., in the fourth century, and which 
originally was twenty-six feet high and ten feet thick, 
and studded with towers. Back of the town is the 
castle of Boppard, which, like St. Goar and Bacharach 
above, once boasted of Commanderies of Knights 
Templars, and it is said that the Knights Templars of 
Boppard are mentioned as having been among the 
ranks of the Crusaders at the siege of Ptolemais, in the 
latter part of the twelfth century. 

Next, we came in sight of the imposing old castle of 
Marksburg, originally called the Braubacher Schloss, 



TEMPLAR REMINISCENCES. 339 

almost 500 feet above the river, and the only one of 
the ancient Rhine fortresses which has escaped destruc- 
tion . * 

In the year 1437, Count Philip, of Katzenellenbogen 
(Heavens, what a name), founded a chapel in the cas- 
tle, and dedicated it to St. Mark, and from that time 
the grand old Scliloss has been known as Marksburg. 
From 1650 to 1800 this castle belonged to Hesse- 
Darmstadt, and was then used by the government of 
Nassau for a state's prison until recent years. 

Next to attract the attention, which by this time has 
become a little wearied by the sight of so many con- 
stantly recurring evidences of feudal times, comes the 
picturesque castle of Lahneck, rising on a rocky emi- 
nence behind the ancient walled town of Oberlahnstein, 
and whose walls and towers are still in a tolerable state 
of preservation ; and which castle was once the prop- 
erty of our old friends, the Knights Templars, traces 
of whom v/e have found many times during our present 
sojourn in Europe, and as our party was mainly made 
up of members of this noble Order, which is as ancient 
as the Crusades, I think we all noticed these Templar 
reminiscences with particular interest. 

Now, we have but one more castle to pass, until our 
eyes shall rest upon the grand old fortress of Ehren- 
breitstein (or the broad stone of honor), the Gibraltar 
of the Rhine, but before reaching that point, we 
see the picturesque castle of Stolzenfels, which is 
situated on a rock 310 feet high, directly over- 
hanging the Rhine, from which it is said the finest view 



340 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

upon the whole river can be obtained, which is cer- 
tainly saying a great deal. The castle is surmounted 
by a beautiful pentagonal tower 110 feet high, and 
dates at least as far back as 1250, and was frequently 
a residence of the high ecclesiastical functionaries of 
those days, who lived in a style of splendor and mag- 
nificence which, thanks to the Reformation and the 
Protestant religion, their successors have never been 
able to equal. 

This fortress was destroyed by the French in 
1689, and lay in ruins until about sixty years 
ago when the city of Coblentz having offered it 
for sale repeatedly at the price of — how much do 
you think — well, about $50,00, and fiaally finding 
no buyers even at that price, the city generously 
presented it to Frederick William IV., then the 
Crown Prince of Prussia, who restored it at a cost of 
$250,000 ; but now the castle belongs to the grand old 
Emperor of Germany, who, at the age of eighty-seven 
years, is still in the full discharge of all the functions 
of government. Now, glorious old Ehrenbreitstein 
sweeps in sight, and in a few minutes after passing 
through the bridge of boats, we are at the pier at 
Coblentz, and are anchored almost under the guns of 
Ehrenbreitstein, which looks grimly down upon us 
from a precipitous rock on the opposite shore, almost 
400 feet above the river, and at last our eyes have 
rested on one of the greatest military strongholds of 
the world. 

We have only passed over a distance of something 



COBLENTZ. 341 

like sixty miles from Mayence to Coblentz, and yet 
what a panorama has passed before us, not of old 
castles and ruined fortresses alone, but beautiful cities 
and towns, rich fields teeming with grain of every 
kind, convents, and monasteries, here and there, beau- 
tiful landscapes, and, in short, such a varied scene of 
enchantment as I am persuaded can nowhere be seen 
but on this river, which does not sweep broadly on 
like our own majestic Hudson, but in its narrow, wind- 
ing course, presents new beauties of scenery at every 
turn, long enough before you have become surfeited 
with the last. 

Coblentz is most beautifully situated at the junction 
of the Rhine and the " Blue Moselle," and is one of 
the most strongly-fortified cities of the Rhine, and, in 
fact, of all Europe. Its population, including Ehren- 
breitstein, amounts to about 35,000. 

Coblentz is especially rich in historical associations ; 
even prior to the campaigns of Julius Caesar, and up 
to the present time, this city has played its part in 
the annals of Europe, in other words, from barbarous 
times to the civilization of the present day. Among 
other momentous events, the meetings of the grand- 
sons of Charlemagne, the Great Emperor of the "West, 
to divide the immense territory of that monarch, into 
France, Italy, and Germany, took place here. The 
city is triangular in shape, and is said to be able to 
include within its walls, if necessary, 100,000 men 
with arms, provisions, and munitions of war sufficient 
to laugh any siege to scorn. 



342 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

It is said that the fortress is itself capable of con- 
taining within its walls 14,000 men, while its magazines 
will provision almost 10,000 men for ten years. It is 
inaccessible on three sides, and has only three times 
succumbed to an enemy; once from treachery, and 
twice from hunger. It is said that so ancient is the 
city of Coblentz, that the castle of Ehrenbreitstein was 
well known as early as 636 A. D., and from that day to 
this, a period of 1,200 years, has gradually reached its 
present strength. It first surrendered in 1631, and 
again, in 1637, but was besieged unsuccessfully four 
times during the war of the French Revolution, but in 
1799, resistance was found no longer possible, because 
of starvation. After the peace of Luneville, the for- 
tifications were demolished, but since then have been 
restored at an expense of $6,000,000, of which France 
contributed about half the amount, in accordance with 
the Second Peace of Paris. Once more, we call upon 
the magic name of Byron to tell the story of this won- 
drous fortress : — 

"Here Ehrenbreitstein with her shattered wall 

Black with the miners' blasts upon her height, 
Yet shows of what she was, when shell and ball 

Rebounding idly on her strength did light; 

A tower of victory from whence the flight 
Of baflled foes was watched along the plain; 

But Peace destroyed what War could never blight 
And laid those proud roofs bare to summer's rain — 
On which the iron shower for years had poured in vain." 

In Coblentz, the large church of St. Castor, with four 
towers, presents a fine appearance from the Rhine, 



HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS. 343 

being near the junction of the Rhine and Moselle, and 
dates back to 836. On the Platz in front of this 
church, rises the monumental fountain which was 
erected by the French to commemorate, in advance, 
the expected success (?) of the awful Russian canvpaign 
of Bonaparte, which cost France the lives of 400,000 
men. 

Only a few months later saw the straggling rem- 
nants of the strand army, under the leadership of the 
valiant Ney and the gallant Prince Eugene, recross 
the Rhine with the Russian army intoxicated by suc- 
cess in mad pursuit, but the Russian commandant, 
St. Priest, when passing through Coblentz, on his 
victorious march to Paris, instead of destroying the 
monument with its vain-glorious inscription, with grim 
humor, had carved below it the words *' Seen and 
approved by the Russian commander of the city of 
Coblentz, January 1st, 1814." After leaving Coblentz, 
most of the interesting scenery of the Rhine is left 
behind us, and there are only a few more points of 
interest to be mentioned before we bid a reluctant 
adieu to the Rhine at Cologne, in all likelihood for- 
ever; but it needs not a second visit to this classic 
river to rivet indelibly upon the mind of the intelli- 
gent observer, scenes of grandeur such as he can 
behold there, and there alone. Truly, is the Rhine 
'* A thing of beauty, and a joy forever." 

Below the city of Coblentz, you soon come to the 
fantastic looking old castles long known as the Crane ^ 
over 300 years old, and the Watch-tower^ of much 



344 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

older date, and soon you reach the ancient Roman 
town of Andernach, where Drusus pitched his camp 
and called the place Antonacum. It has a fine old 
Roman gate, the ruins of an Episcopal palace, an 
ancient church, and a curious looking watch tower. 
The ancient walls still stand in a good state of preser- 
vation, and as viewed from the deck of the steamer, 
are quite interesting to the ordinary observer, and of 
course, much more so to the antiquarian. Then comes 
the tower of Roland, 350 feet above the river with its 
single ivy-covered arch remaining, and then you soon 
find confronting you the Drachenfels or Dragon's rock, 
which is one of the Siebengebirge, or seven mountains, 
each crowned with an ancient castle, the former seats 
of the archbishops of Cologne. 

Drachenfels is 1,056 feet high, and is often re- 
sorted to by passing tourists in order to obtain a 
view of the grand scenery which here confronts the 
observer on every hand. With the ISiebengebirge, 
or seven mountains, the grand scenery of the 
Rhine is ended, as the banks from this on, grad- 
ually flatten out and become dull and uninteresting, 
and nothing is left from that point of consequence 
before reaching Cologne, except the city of Bonn, 
which is mainly noted for its university, which, how- 
ever, is of comparatively modern date. Of these 
seven hills, one the Lorrenberg, is 1,414 feet in height, 
the Wolkenberg 1,067, the Oelberg, 1,473, the Neider- 
stromberg, 1,066; and the Stromberg, 1,053 feet in 
height, are all grand and imposing, but as they mostly 



FAREWELL TO THE RHINE. 345 

loom up at some distance from the river, do not inspire 
you with the same emotion as does Drachenfels, which 
towers right over you from its dizzy height of over 1,000 
feet, and here, even at the risk of the imputation of 
quoting too much, I propose to end my feeble tribute 
to the Rhine, hy just one more verse from Byron: — 

•« The castled crag of Drachenfels 
Frowns o'er the wide and winding Khine 
Whose breast of waters broadly swells, 
Between the banks which bear the vine ; 
And hills are rich with blossomed trees, 
And fields which promise corn and wine, 
And scattered cities crowning these, 
Whose far white walls along them shine, 
Have strewed a scene, which I should see 
With double joy, wert thou with me." 



CHAPTER XII. 



FROM COLOGNE TO WATEELOO. 

^UR steamer landed at the pier at Cologne about 
nine p. m., and by the time we had gotten our- 
selves comfortably settled in our hotel, and taken a 
little refreshment, it was time to retire for the night, 
as our trip had extended that day from Heidelberg to 
Cologne, and we all retired to rest, too completely 



346 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

worn out with sightseeing, to even to dream of the 
glories of that never-to-be forgotten day. The next 
morning, we were all astir betimes in order to make 
the most of our time, as we were to leave, at one p. 
m., for Brussels, and I, for one, found my way to the 
grand Cathedral and gazed upon its wondrous propor- 
tions with awe for a few minutes, before I returned 
to the tempting repast, consisting of bread, honey, and 
coifee, which European hotels always set before their 
guests, under the high-toned name of dejeuner. I, for 
one, never presumed to question the propriety and 
authenticity of this term, for I never once thought of 
profaning the grand old English word, " breakfast," 
in such a connection as this. 

Cologne, as everybody knows, is not particularly 
noted for the sweetness of its smells, although it may 
be for the agreeableness of its perfumes, in fact, it 
has been characterized many years ago as having ' ' sev- 
enty distinct and separate smells," by somebody, who, 
I presume, had more time to give them a careful anal- 
ysis than I did, but I had not gotten many sniffs of the 
delightful " sea breeze from the gutters," until I came 
to the conclusion that the genius who invented the cele- 
brated perfumery of that name must have been forced 
to do so, as a dernier ressort in self defense, and I 
thought that he had entitled himself to a vote of 
thanks on the part of thousands of tourists, past, pres- 
ent, and to come. The poet Coleridge, writes of this 
famous old city, beginning thus: " In Coin, that town 
of monks and bones." And when I visited the 



THE CITY OF COLOGNE. 347 

church of Saint Ursula, containing the alleged 
remains of the famous eleven thousand virgins, who 
were massacred here by the cruel Huns in the fifth 
century, I thought to myself that he had hit it off 
pretty well. 

On our way to the Cathedral, which is, of course, 
the first place sought out by the tourist who visits 
this ancient city, we pass a magnificent monument, 
erected to the memory of Frederick William III., of 
Prussia (the successor of Frederick II., who is known 
in history as ''Frederick the Great"), which was 
erected in the Heumarkt or " Hay market," in the 
year 1878. The monument is surmounted by a large 
equestrian statue of Frederick William III., and is or- 
namented as usual with scenes from the military and 
civic history of the German Empire, and is surrounded 
with life-size statues of men who have been famous in 
Germany, in various walks of life. Among the num- 
ber may be seen, Blucher, the two Humboldts, and 
others of more or less note in the history of Germany. 

The city of Cologne is the largest and most impor- 
tant on the Rhine, and contains 140,000 inhabitants. , 
Here is another very large bridge of boats across the 
Rhine to Deutz, which is, like Cologne, also strongly 
fortified. 

Cologne is the residence of an Archbishop, the largest 
city in the Rhenish Province of Prussia, is one of the 
most important commercial places in Germany, and is 
a fortified city of the first class, having at all times, a 
garrison of 7,000 men. The streets of the town are 



348 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

mostly narrow, crooked, gloomy, and badly drained, 
which, of course, accounts for the name it has all 
through Europe for want of cleanliness. 

Cologne was founded by the Ubii when they were 
compelled by Agrippa to remove from the right to the; 
left bank of the Rhine. In A. D. 51, Agrippina, the 
daughter of Germanicus, and mother of the wicked 
and infamous Nero, founded here a colony of Roman 
veterans, and the colony was named from its founder, 
Colonia Agrippinensis. 

Since 1815, when it became German again, after 
having been in French possession for about twenty 
years, the city of Cologne has made rapid strides, and 
it has easily taken rank among the most considerable 
commercial cities of Germany. Without any doubt 
whatever, the Cathedral is the finest old Gothic struc- 
ture in the world, and it is very doubtful if any of the 
boasted works of antiquity could have justly been com- 
pared with it. Its situation is commanding, being 
nearly in the center of the city, and on an eminence 
of considerable height. The present Cathedral was 
begun in 1248, under the auspices of Conrad of Hoch- 
staden, then Archbishop of Cologne, who contributed 
largely towards the object by his own liberal contribu- 
tions. Gerhard, of Rile, is considered to have drawn 
the first plan of this world-famed specimen of Gothic 
architecture. The work, however, proceeded so slowly 
that it was not until 1322 that the new choir was con- 
secrated. 

This magnificent structure has been more than 600 



THE FAMOUS CATHEDRAL. 349 

years in reaching its present sublime proportions, and 
iias only been finally completed and consecrated, since 
1880. The two towers, the loftiest in the world with 
the exception now, I believe, of the Washington mon- 
ument, reach the stupenduous height of 512 feet. The 
structure is in the usual form of the Latin cross, and its 
dimensions are truly astounding. 

The entire length is 444 feet, the breadth 201 feet, 
and at the transept 292 feet, the walls are 150 feet 
in height, the roof is 201 feet high, and the central 
tower, which crowns the transept is 357 feet in height. 

The cathedral is so truly grand and sublime, that I 
shall not try to describe it, but only to make a few 
remarks concerning it, such as most readily occur to 
me. 

The south tower remained in an unfinished state for 
400 years, and a huge crane remained suspended there 
for the whole time, just as it was left by the workmen 
who had last made use of it, and for centuries it was a 
land-mark visible for many miles from Cologne in any 
direction. This huge crane was not taken down until 
1868, and now a slab with an appropriate inscription 
commemorates the spot where it hung suspended for 
four centuries. 

There is a tradition that once during this time it was 
taken down by the authorities, but Cologne was soon 
after visited by an awful storm, which the inhabitants, 
in their superstition, believed was sent them because 
by taking down the crane they meant to advertise the 
fact that they never intended to keep their vows to 



350 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

God and finish the cathedral, so thej hastily hoisted 
the huge machine with its arm nearly fifty feet long 
right back to its usual place. 

In 1842 the work of attempting to finish this noble 
structure received a fresh impetus, and from that time 
until its completion in 1880, nearly $6,000,000 were 
expended upon it. No picture or description by even 
the most gifted of writers could do justice to the 
wonderful beauty of this structure, so of course I shall 
not attempt it. I shall only mention one wonderful 
collection of relics in this Minster which the custodians 
of the cathedral claim to be genuine, but when you 
have heard the story, you may receive it cum grano sails 
or not, just as you choose. 

This is a small chapel just behind the main altar, 
and they actually claim that it contains the ' ' bones of 
the three Magi, or wise men of the east," who came 
to lay their offerings at the feet of the new born Savior 
of mankind. According to the veracious ( ?) chron- 
icle, which is so ancient, that, of course, it will be hard 
to dispute it successfully, the names of these famous 
men were Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthaser, and that 
there might be no mistake about the matter, and to 
prevent their identity being lost, their names are actu- 
ally written in rubies on their own skulls. This 
shrine is, -of course, decorated in the greatest profu- 
sion with precious stones, and although it was bereft 
of some of the most valuable gems during the anarchy 
and misrule of the French Ke volution, it is still valued 
at something like a million dollars. 



CHURCH or ST. URSULA. 351 

It is said that the legend of St. Ursula whose church 
we next visited, and her eleven thousand virgins, arose 
out of the misreading of the abbreviations in an an- 
cient MS., which spoke of St. Ursula and UndecimilUa 
V. M. (St. Ursula and UndecimilUa, Yirgin Martyrs). 

This a wise transcriber read and copied thus : Ursula 
(et) Undecim MilUa Martyrum Virginum, and thus 
made two names into 11,000. 

We next wended our way to the Church of Saint 
Ursula and her companions, to which we have just 
alluded, but of which we will put down a few more 
particulars. Of course, in the first place, the whole 
story is very absurd, but there is no doubt that this 
church contains the alleged bones of some of the fa- 
mous eleven thousand virgins, although a great many 
thousands of these relics have been distributed among 
the faithful of Europe. 

Most of the numerous relics now to be seen in the 
Church of St. Ursula were dug out of the ground of 
the church itself, and of the surrounding parts, where 
the convent was standing. Only a small part come 
from the general disinterment of the year 1155. Some 
of these relics are enclosed in numerous stone coffins, 
put up on the south and west side of the church, some 
are enclosed in the walls of the chancel, some again, 
are enclosed in the walls of the church, and of the 
golden chamber for public veneration. One scoffing 
M. D. of our party remarked that some bones which 
he examined belonged to the anatomy of a horse, but 
as he was nothing probably if not a Protestant, of 



352 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

course every son of the true church would reject his state- 
ment with the greatest indignation. ( ?) In the golden 
chamber the number of these grinning skulls is about 
1,700, among them, of course, their leader, St. Ursula, 
many of them beautifully decorated with various gold 
and silver ornaments, fine bead work, etc. 

This golden chamber is finely decorated ,_and contains 
three articles which are as astounding as the skulls of the 
three wise men in the Cathedral. One of them is a 
veritable ^^■ece of the whip ( 9) with which Christ was 
scourged, a second, some particles of the crown of 
thorns{ ?) of our Savior, and the third relic, is one of the 
six water pots which were used at the wedding, at Canain 
Galilee, where the Savior turned the water into wine. 
The shape of this pot corresponds to the water pots used 
in olden times in the East. It is made of alabaster, 
and it is said to correspond with the Scriptural accounts 
that these pots contained two or three Jewish measures 
apiece. This alabaster pot is, in the opinion of com- 
petent judges, an ancient one, and was, according to 
documents in the archives of the city, in the fourteenth 
century, brought from the Holy Land by a Cologne 
Knight, and presented to the city. By the chief mag- 
istrate of the city, however, it was given to the church 
of the patron saint of the city, St. Ursula, in the 
year 1378. At the mouth of this pot, a piece is broken 
off, and also one of the "two handles. It is said that 
the piece which is missing from the mouth of the pot, 
was formerly kept amongst the sacred relics of the 
church of Notre Dame, at Paris. 



A FINE PANORAMA. 353 

Next, we went to see a fine panorama of the battle 
of Grravelotte, which was on exhibition at Cologne, 
which was quite interesting, but did not compare with 
one of the battle of "Waterloo, which I saw at Ant- 
werp, a few days latere but this was partly, no doubt, 
because I had visited only the day before, that greatest 
and most far-reaching in its results, of all the battle- 
fields of Europe. The Prussian officer in charge of the 
panorama, I soon found out, spoke very good English, 
and in the course of a brief conversation I had with him, 
told me that he participated in this sanguinary engage- 
ment between the French and the Prussians as an officer 
of artillery, and then he resigned his position in the 
army. He went to New York, lived there several 
years, married there, and after losing his wife and 
child, the Germane Himweh, or home longing, overcame 
him, and he returned to his native land, and re-entered 
the Prussian army. 

By the way, while I was standing near the great 
Cathedral, a regiment of Prussian soldiers, with 
banners flying, and a full military band playing 
the national anthems of Germany, marched by, with 
the precision and exactness of an automaton, and 
when I compared them with the young French con- 
scripts, whom I had heard chant the Marseillaise hymn 
at the gates of Saint Cloud, I thought to myself that 
France was now hardly any better prepared to en- 
counter the trained phalanxes of Germany than she was 
in 1870, when the " nephew of his uncle " was hurled 
headlong from the throne of France by these serried 

23 



354 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

German legions. As we still had a half an hour or so 
to spend before our luncheon, after which we were to 
leave for Brussels and Waterloo, " that first and last 
of fields, King-making victory," I hastened back to 
the great Cathedral, and ascended as far as I was al- 
lowed, in order to obtain a view of the "wide and 
winding Ehine," the seven mountains and all the sur- 
rounding country, which the vast Cathedral, of course, 
commands for miles and miles on every hand. 

Up to that time, in all Europe, I had seen nothing 
finer, and, in fact, the tall and graceful spires of 
Cologne Cathedral were visible for miles and miles 
after we had left the city on our way to Brussels. 
Here I took my farewell look at the Ehine, and, once 
more, instead of my own, I shall use the eye of genius, 
to describe this " last, long, lingering look behind." 

"Adieu, to thee, fair Rhine; how long, delighted 
The stranger fain would linger on his way, 

Thine is a scene alike, where souls united, 
On lonely contemplation, thus might stray; 

And could the ceaseless vultures cease to prey 
On self-condemning bosoms, it were here 

Where nature, nor too somber, nor too gay, 
Wild, but not too rude, awful, yet not austere, 
Is to the mellow earth, as Autumn to the year." 

•'Adieu, to thee again; a vain adieu, 

There can be no farewell to scene like thine ; 

The mind is colored by thy every hue ; 
And if, reluctantly, the eyes resign 

Their cherished gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine. 
'Tis with the thankful glance of lasting praise; 

More mighty spots may rise — more glaring shine. 
But none unite in one attaching maze 
The brilliant, 'fair, and soft; —the glories of old days." 



AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. 355 

On the road to Brussels, the first place of any con- 
siderable importance, is the city of Aix-la-Chapelle, 
which is forty -three miles from Cologne, and which 
has played a very considerable part in the history of 
Europe, from the earliest times. It has about 85,000 
inhabitants., and lies in a fertile basin surrounded by 
gently sloping hills. It owes most of its fame to its 
having been the favorite residence of the Great Em- 
peror Charlemagne, who elevated it to the rank of the 
second city in his Empire, and the capital of his domin- 
ions north of the Alps, the chief capital being, of course, 
the city of Eome. 

The great Emperor died here in 814, and we noticed 
from the railway station the dome of the cathedral 
erected by Charlemagne between 796 and 804, which 
contains the remains of the Great Emperor of the 
West, which reposed on the imperial throne composed 
of marble slabs for 186 j^ears, when they were found 
by the Emperor Otho III., who opened the tomb in the 
year 1000. The Emperor Frederick Barbarossa again 
opened the tomb in 1165, and removed the remains to 
an ancient sarcophagus, while the throne was after- 
wards used for the coronation of the Emperors. From 
the death of Charlemagne to the accession of Ferdinand 
I., in 1531, Aix witnessed the coronation of all the 
German Emperors, more than seven centuries having 
elapsed, during which thirty-seven Emperors were here 
crowned. 

All the insignia of the Empire were preserved here 
until the year 1793, when they were transferred to the 
imperial treasury at Vienna. 



356 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

At Landen, thirty-eight miles from Brussels, was 
born Pepin, of Landen (ancestor of Pepin the " Lit- 
tle," and of Charlemagne), who died here in 640. 
With him began what is known as the Carlovingian line. 

Between Landen and Esemail, the railway intersects 
the plain of Neer-Winden, the scene of. two great 
battles. In the first battle of Neer-Winden, William 
III. of England, in command of the allies, of whom 
Macaulay says that he " recovered quicker from de- 
feat than almost any General of history, who was as 
brave but as unfortunate in the art of winning victo- 
ries as he was," was defeated in the Spanish War of 
Succession by the French under Marshal Luxembourg, 
July 29th, 1693. The second battle on this field was 
fought by the French under Gen. Dumouriez and 
Louis Philippe, afterwards Louis XVIII. , of France, 
who were defeated by the Austrians under the Duke of 
Coburg, March 18th, 1793. 

About thirty miles from Brussels, the train traverses 
a lofty embankment from which, in clear weather, to the 
left the Belgian Lion and the Prussian Monument may 
be seen on " the grave of France, the deadly Water- 
loo." Brussels is soon reached, and we are within 
ten miles of the spot where the star of Bonaparte went 
down in the darkness of eternal night. I was so 
anxious to see this fatal field, that I could hardly wait 
for the next day to arrive, so that I might stand upon 
"that place of skulls," and have pointed out to me 
many spots of interest which could yet be identified 
upon such historic ground. 



THE CITY OF BRUSSELS. 357 

Our plan was to see what we could of Brussels that 
evening and the next morning, and then visit Waterloo 
in the afternoon, and the next day was Sunday, by the 
way, the same day of the week on which this greatest, 
and most wonderful in its consequences, of all the bat- 
tles of Napoleon was fought, and in which he was 
beaten by a succession of unfortunate coincidences 
and miscalculations, such as had never before befallen 
him, or will be likely ever again to happen to any 
General of the future, and in which the " man of des- 
tiny " at last found destiny too much for him, and he 
had to succumb to the inevitable. 

His plans for winning that battle were, perhaps, as 
near perfection as the ingenuity of that mighty genius, 
and he alone, could conceive, and yet he was utterly 
routed, only showing another instance of the old say- 
ing that, " Man proposes, but God disposes." 

Brussels has been called the " miniature Paris," and 
while it is more like Paris, certainly, than any other city 
of Europe, yet I regretted that I had not seen it 
before seeing Paris, as the remaining portion of our 
original party did, as, after Paris, it was a good deal like 
reversing an opera glass, and looking at things through 
the other end, where you see everything on a much 
diminished scale ; but, nevertheless, there is much to be 
seen there to instruct and amuse, and I think we made 
good use of the time at our disposal. 

Brussels, the capital of Belgium, and the residence 
the King Leopold m., contains in all about 400,000 
people, or about one- fifth the population of Paris, two- 



358 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

thirds of whom speak Flemish, and the remainder 
French. Like Paris, it has its parks, boulevards, 
cafes-chantants, and many other attractions, but most 
people who go there do so, I think, more for the pur- 
pose of making a trip to Waterloo than anything else. 
If you desire it, they will still show you the house where 
the Duchess of Eichmond was giving her famous ball on 
the night of Thursday, June 15th, 1815, when the open- 
ing cannonading of Quatre-Bras and Ligny, which were 
preliminary to the great drama of Waterloo, was heard, 
in both of which Bonaparte was victorious. Marshal Ney 
having beaten the Prince of Orange, and the Duke of 
Brunswick, who fell in the engagement at Quatre- 
Bras, and Grouchy also beating the Prussians at Ligny 
on Friday, the 16th of June, two days before the 
final catastrophe at Waterloo. 

The Duke of Wellington intended originally to meet 
Bliicher at Qnatre-Bras, before fighting Napoleon at 
all, but the latter, with his wonted energy and bound- 
less genius, was using his usual tactics of crushing the 
enemy, by whipping him in detail, whilst Wellington, 
with Generals Picton and Ponsonby, the Duke of 
Brunswick and the Prince of Orange, with other lesser 
lights, were disporting themselves among " fair women 
and brave men," at the Duchess of Richmond's ball. 

Who has not read Byron's wonderful pen picture of 
the stirring scenes of that eventful night? — 

"Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro, 
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, 
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago 



GALERIE DE LA REINE. 359 

Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness ; 

And there were sudden partings, such as press 
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs, 

Which ne'er might be repeated; who would guess 
If evermore should meet those mutual eyes. 
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise." 

That evening I strolled around the city to see what 
I could of it by gaslight, and the scenes presented on 
the boulevards and in the gay cafes irresistibly took 
me back to Paris. One of the famous sights of Brus- 
sels is the Galerie de la Heine, or Queen's Arcade, 
which extends straight through two blocks, and is the 
most fashionable promenade in the city of Brussels. 
This magnificent arcade is near the Hotel de Ville, or 
City Hall, and is 700 feet long, 60 feet high, and about 
80 wide, and is lined with some of the finest and 
attractive stores in the city, and is constantly thronged 
by vast crowds, among them, many pre-eminently 
rich and fashionable. 

The Grande Place, at Brussels, is probably one of 
the finest and most imposing specimens of the rich 
architecture of the Middle Ages to be seen in Europe ; 
and the grand old Hotel de Ville, with its beautiful 
spire tapering to the heavens, and its front carved 
with beautiful arches and grinning faces of every 
design in the world, which it seems that human inge- 
nuity can devise, is truly a noble spectacle. It was 
in this square that was held the chief rendezvous of 
the British troops in Brussels, on the night that the 
news was received of Bonaparte's advance on Brussels 
by way of Quatre-Bras and Waterloo, as up to that 



360 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

time, the Duke of Wellington had been entirely in the 
dark as to where Bonaparte would strike. The Hotel 
de Ville is pre-eminently " the sight " of Brussels, and 
the spire, which is 360 in height, is crowned with a 
gilded metal figure of the Archangel Michael, which 
is 16 feet high, and which, unlike most statuary of 
that kind, is movable, and serves the purpose of a 
weathercock. Near here is a curious little fountain 
called the *' Mannikin," and which is much admired 
by the good Belgian folk, who on fete days attire him 
infancy costume, and who disport themselves much 
at his comicality. When I saw him I was much 
amused, and instantly thought of the boyish figure 
which surmounts the beautiful fountain in Fountain 
Square, Cincinnati, and of the verse which appeared 
in the Cincinnati Enquirer, when the fountain was 
dedicated some twelve or thirteen years ago. 

"Der small boy, he stands on der fountain 
Und lie don't got on any clothes, 
And de girls, dey all blush and say 
Vot he means by such conduct as dose? " 

In the Grande Place, there formerly stood a monu- 
ment to the Counts Egmont and Home, who sealed 
their patriotism with their blood at the hands of the 
infamous and cruel Duke of Alva, at th,e time when 
he desolated the Low Countries with fire and sword, and 
whom Goethe has handed down to posterity in his 
famous Egmont. 

The King's Palace is a grand affair, of course, but 
can only be visited when King Leopold is absent, which 



PALACE OF JUSTICE. 361 

is shown by the absence of a flag which floats from the 
palace when the king is in Brussels. As we drove by 
on that beautiful Sabbath morning we noticed the flag 
proudly floating from the flag-staff, so we did not stay 
our progress. 

The city is divided into the upper and lower town, 
in the former of which dwell the aristocracy. In 
strolling around the city after we returned from 
Waterloo, we passed through several streets occupied 
by the lower classes, nearly all of them wearing saSo^s, 
or wooden shoes — and you can imagine the contrast 
they presented to the elegantly dressed people whom 
we had seen leisurely strolling through the Queen's 
Arcade only the evening before. 

When we were in Brussels we saw the new Palais 
de Justice, or Palace of Justice, built entirely of white 
marble, and which is certainly one of the finest public 
buildings to be seen in Europe. Here are held all the 
courts of Brussels, and the sittings of the Legislative 
Assembly. The palace has stamped upon it, at fre- 
quent interval the letters " S. P. Q. B." for the Latin 
" ^enatus Populusque Belgarum," (" the Senate and 
People of the Belgians ") in imitation of the " S. P. 
Q. R.," or " Senatus Populus-que Romanus," of the 
ancient Romans. There is also a handsome monument 
surrounded by lions, like the famous Nelson monument in 
Trafalgar Square, London, called the column of Con- 
gress, in commemoration of the Congress which assem- 
bled here in 1831, for the adoption of the present 
constitution of Belgium. 



362 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Of course, Brussels has its usual grand old cathe- 
dral, Samt Gudule, which is somewhat centrally situ- 
ated on the slope up to the new part of the town. 
This cathedral, though founded in the twelfth century, 
is not especially noted for its architecture, but derives 
its chief fame on account of its beautiful interior, and 
for its large and superb stained glass windows, which 
are esteemed as second to none in the world, and cer- 
tainly, in the cathedrals of Europe, which I had visited, 
all of which, without exception, were more pretentious 
than St. Gudule, I had seen nothing to compare with 
them. The pulpit in this church is also superior to 
anything of the kind we had seen in Europe, and must 
have been the work of some carver like the famous 
Grindling Gibbons. One group represents Adam and 
Eve driven from Paradise, while the pulpit itself is 
supported by the tree of knowledge of good and evil, 
while surmounting the canopy of the pulpit is repre- 
sented the Virgin Mary, holding the infant Savior, 
who is attempting to bruise with the cross the serpent's 
head. 

I must not omit to mention something of interest 
to every Knight Templar — the superb equestrian 
statue in bronze, of that grand old Templar and Crus- 
ader, Godfrey de Bouillon which was erected in 1848, 
in the Place Eoyale. 

Near the church of Saint Gudule, we visited one of 
the lace manufactories, though it was Sunday, and saw 
the work of making this beautiful fabric, in actual 
progress, and saw some of the most expensive and 



WIERTZ MUSEUM. 363 

beautiful specimens of that manufacture, which it was 
ever my lot to look upon. However, although we had 
at least one millionaire among us, I do not think that 
our party made any very extensive or expensive pur- 
chases. 

After all this there was not much left to see except 
the picture galleries of Brussels, of which there are 
two : one called the Museum or " Musee de Peinture," 
which is divided into two galleries, one called the 
"Old Masters," consisting of Flemish, Italian, and 
Spanish productions ; and the other, that of the modern 
Belgian masters, which includes also statuary, and 
which is considered superior to the famous Antwerp 
collection — but I was not interested here as I was in 
the famous Wiertz museum, which is certainly one of 
the quaintest, and most unique collections to be found 
in the world, the artist, Wiertz, having gained a great 
reputation for eccentricity, but certainly it is the 
eccentricity of genius. 

This gallery is justly regarded as one of the chief 
attractions of Brussels. The building is filled with the 
productions of the one artist alone. 

The ceiling and a portion of the walls are cov- 
ered with immense frescoes, some representing battle 
scenes from the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, 
which gave me a tremendous conception of the 
warriors and giants of antiquity. One picture repre- 
sented the vast arms and lower limbs of the giant 
Polyphemus, having in his relentless grasp the fol- 
lowers of the crafty Ulysses, they, of course, in 



364 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

comparison being mere pigmies, and I thought at once 
of the famous line of Virgil, which portrays so vigor- 
ously this horrid monster: — 

*' Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cut lumen aclemptum." 

Another picture is especially notable, and represents, 
I suppose, the personal and national antipathy of the 
artist, who was of German extraction, to the famous 
subject. I allude to the picture entitled " Napoleon 
in Hell," in which his lower limbs are enveloped in 
flames, and around and in front of him are seen hover- 
ing the demoniacal faces of malignant furies, which 
are, I suppose, intended to represent the menaces of 
widows and orphans which he had made in his numer- 
ous and sanguinary wars. The artist, however, in spite 
of himself, could not refrain from doing justice to 
the mighty and undaunted soul of this extraordinary 
man, for he depicts him as though perfectly unmoved 
by the terror of his surroundings : — 

'•With folded arms Napoleon stood, 
Serene, alike, in peace and danger." 

Some of his conceptions are absolutely startling in 
their intense truthfulness to life. Among these, one 
represents the corpse of some person who had died with 
the cholera, being taken from his chamber for inter- 
ment, and his poor wife and children clinging to the 
coffin and the persons who carry it, as though they 
would fain detain their beloved but a little longer, and 
weeping as though their hearts would break. 



VISIT TO WATERLOO. 365 

Another represents a poor mother who, in her mad- 
ness, has killed her only child, and has cut it up, and 
is actually cooking it in one of her kettles for her 
repast. 

Still another is that of a young girl rather lightly 
clad, who appears gazing at the spectator from a half 
open door, and as though she would fain avoid the 
licentious eye of the stranger. 

Another one, still more curious, and which you do not 
" see through " at once, represents the habiliments of 
a person clad as though for the Arctic regions, but 
there is something; curious and incono:ruous about the 
face which does not seem to correspond with the rest 
of the body. You look again, and, apparently, the 
face is that of some living person, but, of course, that 
can not be ! You look once more, and at last recognize 
your own face as the one which you have seen in- 
geniously reflected in some looking-glass. I was 
startled not a little when I made this discovery, and 
I watched with much interest, several others look at 
the same picture, and they all, like myself, seemed 
at first puzzled and then surprised. 

Now comes the most interesting part of our visit to 
to Brussels, or at least it seemed so to me — the trip to 
Waterloo — for, from my earliest boyhood, I had de- 
voured with avidity every thing I could put my hands 
on concerning this mighty warrior, and here I was 
actually only ten miles away from the fatal spot where 
he " fell, like Lucifer, never to hope again," and the 
train seemed to me to move all too slowly. If you 



366 A KNIGHT TEMPLAU ABROAD. 

go by rail, you start from the Station du Midi in 
Brussels, and leave the train at Braine 1 'Alleud, not at 
Waterloo Station, which you reach first, but is some- 
what further from the field of battle than Braine 
1 'Alleud, which is about one mile away. However, if 
you alight at "Waterloo, you will find something worth 
seeing there, in the little church, in which are tablets 
inscribed with the names of British officers and men 
who fell in the engagement, and a bust of the Duke of 
Wellington, and hard by, is the house where he wrote 
his dispatches to Lord Bathurst, the English Secretary 
for War, on the night of the victory. It was this cir- 
cumstance which, no doubt, gave the name of Waterloo 
to this famous battle, for the village is some two miles 
from the fatal field, and had no immediate connection 
with the battle whatever. 

To understand the plan of this battle, let me quote 
Victor Hugo's account from Les Miserables, whose 
masterly pen picture of the engagement will probably 
never be equaled by mortal man.^ Of course, I shall 
easily be pardoned for quoting so much from him, who, 
himself, though a Frenchman, has written a singularly 



1 Since the above was written, the author of "A Knight Temp- 
lar Abroad " has completed a translation (which will be published 
at an early day,) of M. Erckmann-Chatrian's Historical novel, 
"Waterloo," which gives an elaborate and graphic account of the 
battles, both of Ligny and Waterloo, which has gone through 
twenty-nine editions in Europe, and for whose kindly reception by 
the reading public the translator asks only as flattering a greeting 
as he is happy to say that "A Knight Templar Abroad" has met 
with, despite its many shortcomings and imperfections. 



SKETCH OF THE BATTLE. 367 

impartial narrative, in wliich he does ample justice to 
the English, though his country's ancient enemy. He 
says in this wonderful sketch : — 

*' Those who wish to form a distinct idea of the bat- 
tle of Waterloo need only imagine a capital A laid on 
the ground. The left leg of the A is the Nivelles road, 
the right one, the Genappe road, while the string of 
the A is the hollow way running from Braine 1 ' Alleud 
to Ohain. The top of the A is Mont St. Jean, where 
Wellington is; the left lower point is Hougomont, 
where Reille is with Jerome Bonaparte ; the right lower 
point is La Belle Alliance, where Napoleon is. A lit- 
tle below the point where the string of the A meets and 
cuts the right leg, is La Haye Sainte, and in the center 
of this string is the exact spot where the battle was 
concluded. It is here that the ' Lion ' is placed, the 
involuntary symbol of the heroism of the Old Guard. 
The triangle comprised at the top of the A, between 
the two legs and the string, is the plateau of Mont 
St. Jean ; the dispute for this plateau was the whole 
battle. The wings of the two armies extend to the 
right and left of the Genappe and Nivelles roads, 
d 'Erlon facing Picton, Reille facing Hill. Behind the 
point of the A, behind the plateau St. Jean, is the 
forest of Soignes. As for the plain itself, imagine a 
vast undulating ground ; each ascent commands the 
next ascent, and all the undulations ascend to Mont St. 
Jean, where they form the forest." 

Of course, visitors to the ground at the present day 
or for that matter, for many years past, find the 



368 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

scene of the battle so changed that it is nothing like 
its former self; in fact, the Duke of Wellington, visit- 
ing the field only a few years after his famous victory, 
said, *' My battle-field has been altered." 

However, much of this change may be accounted 
for by the rearing of the stupenduous mound of earth, 
on which the Belgian Lion is located, which is two 
hundred feet high and nearly half a mile around, and 
the earth for which was obtained by cutting down the 
field of battle. 

The English had, unquestionably, far the advantage 
in position, as Wellington had, fortunately for himself, 
visited the field several years before, and, accordingly, 
when his forces fell back from Qatre-Bnis and Ligny 
before the victorious legions of Napoleon, instead 
of halting his forces on the lower heights, which the 
French subsequently occupied, as that was then " Hob- 
son's choice," he very wisely fell further back to the 
plateau at Mont St. Jean, where he knew of the 
"Sunken Road," which would in the former event 
have been in his rear in case of retreat, and which 
would now make his position much stronger against 
the French advance. 

Hugo says, that " at the time of the battle the 
Swiken Road (which is scarcely now discernible) 
was at least twelve feet deep, and although it ran 
along the crest of the plateau of Mont St. Jean, was 
not visible to an observer who was below the crest at 
all." 

This hollow way was on the left wing of the British 



THE BATTLEFIELD. 369 

array, and as the result proved, was their salvation, 
and the prime factor in the defeat of the French. 

The Emperor Napoleon was, essentially, an artillery 
fighter ; in fact, he made his first reputation when 
but a Lieutenant at the siege of Toulon by the way 
he handled his guns there, and at Waterloo he outnum- 
bered the enemy in guns very materially, having two 
hundred and forty pieces to confront the one hundred 
and fifty-nine of Wellington, but the superior posi- 
tion of Wellington more than made up for the differ- 
ence, as the result proved. 

The fate of Europe turned on several apparent 
trifles which played an all-important part in this battle. 

First of all, was the heavy rain of the night before, 
which made the plain of Waterloo almost impassable 
for artillery until half-past eleven o'clock in the morn- 
ing of the 18th of June. Then came the fatal mistake 
in regard to the stone wall of Hougomont, which was 
thought to be only a hedge; then the ignorance or 
treachery of Lacoste, the peasant (though it matters 
not much, which, now, as the result is the same in 
either case), who failed to give Bonaparte the informa- 
tion which would have been simply invaluable to him 
(and which might, in spite of everything, still have 
changed the issue of the battle), concerning the exist- 
ence of the " Sunken Koad;" then the peasant boy, 
consulted by Bliicher, who did know the shortest route 
to Waterloo, instead of the longest, there being two 
routes to reach the battle ground, the latter of which, 
had Bliicher taken it, would inevitably have detained 

24 



370 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

him too long to come up to the assistance of WeUing- 
ton before it was too late to succor him, and thus win 
the day as they did ; and last of all, the cowardice or 
treachery of Marshal Grouchy, who, instead of sacri- 
ficing his whole army if need were to save Napoleon 
(just as in olden times, according to the legend, the 
chivalrous and gallant Quintus Cartius leapt into the 
yawning gulf in the Eoman Forum to save Rome, 
and the chasm which threatened the safety of the 
Eternal City immediately closed over his devoted 
head), let Blucher flank him, and yet stood irresolute, 
within the sound of Napoleon's cannon, instead of 
hastening to the rescue, and that, too, despite the im- 
portunities of his own Grenerals who earnestly begged 
to be led to Waterloo to the succor of their beloved 
Emperor. 

All this extraordinary, and totally unforeseen and 
unexpected concatenation of circumstances threw 
their weight into the scales and Napoleon was lost. 
By the way, while speaking of Grouchy' s wholly in- 
explicable conduct on that eventful day and of his 
ignominious share in the dread result at Waterloo, 
(and concerning which, en passant^ Headley, the his- 
torian, says, and as I think most Justly, " that he 
charges the crime and suffering of Waterloo, on Eu- 
ropean despots, rather than to Bonaparte)," it here 
occurs to me as, to say the least, a little remarkable, 
that no writer (save Grouchy himself), with whom I 
am acquainted, not even Hugo, in his singularly dis- 
passionate narrative of Waterloo, has accounted for 



MARSHAL GROUCHY. 371 

the '* masterly state of inactivity," of which Grouchy 
was seemingly guilty on that fatal day, or has even 
attempted to explain why, after having won the battle 
of Ligny on Friday, he assisted so largely by his sin- 
gular conduct (to call it by no worse name), in losing 
Waterloo on Sunday. 

Grouchy, afterwards, in his Fragments Historiques, 
published at Paris, in 1840, tried to vindicate his con- 
duct on that occasion by saying that the Emperor had 
ordered him to hold his post at all hazards (but those 
orders, of course, meant that he should prevent 
Bliicher from effecting a junction with Wellington, so 
that Napoleon might repeat his favorite tactics of 
getting an army separated into fragments and then 
falling upon these fragments and beating them in de- 
tail), and that he had but obeyed orders (possibly 
in the letter, but most assuredly not in the spirit); 
but the fallacy of his position consists in this, that there 
was no longer any occasion for that after Bliicher had 
already flanked him and moved on Waterloo, to 
the relief of Wellington, but he should immediately 
have fallen upon Bliicher' s rear guard with his whole 
army and pursued him to Waterloo, and thus at least, 
have effected a diversion in Napoleon's favor, if no 
more. 

The French people, however, always distrusted him, 
and his labored explanation carried no weight with it ; 
and Grouchy must accept one horn of the dilemma, 
and must, in the pages of history, rest forever under 
the imputation of either cowardice (which his previous 



372 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

reputation as a gallant officer wholly belies), or treason 
to Napoleon, which is the more probable theory, and 
the one more generally accepted. 

Of course, I shall not presume to try to give even 
a faint description of this momentous struggle between 
Napoleon alone and unaided on the one hand, and the 
greatest allied powers of Europe on the other, but I 
hope I may be pardoned for my presumption in haz- 
arding a few remarks based upon the careful study of 
this historic field, as described by several writers of 
note. 

At half past eleven o'clock in the morning, Jerome 
Napoleon led the charge on the chateau of Hougomont 
(or Goumont), with a serried column of 6,000 men, 
expecting easily to capture the chateau, and thus turn 
the right wing of the allies; but, instead, the French 
found it to be a " tower of a strength," and a strong- 
hold which really turned out afterwards to be a " coign 
of vantage," and the key of Wellington's position, 
and the factor which virtually decided the battle, for, 
although the French performed prodigies of valor, and 
Kellerman's cannon balls dashed like rain against the 
solid wall of Hougomont with its 38 loop-holes, still 
seven companies of the Coldstream Guards held the 
chateau for seven hours against all the oft-repeated 
and fiery attacks of the French. 

In the garden of Hougomont, 1,500 men fell in less 
than an hour, and in the orchard, both of which were 
taken by the French, after a most stubborn resistance ; 
although the chateau, though in flames, resisted to the 



DESCRIPTION OF THE BATTLE 373 

last their most persistent endeavors, a battalion of 
Nassau, 700 strong, were cut to pieces in an hour. 

Hugo says that " around Hougomont, twenty French 
battalions, of the forty composing Keille's corps, were 
decimated, and 3,000 men were sabred, gashed, 
butchered, shot, and burnt." 

La Haye Sainte, on the left wing of the Allied forces, 
also made a most stubborn resistance, so much so that 
the French lost 1,800 men in less than an hour in the 
vain assault upon it, but about three p. m. after giv- 
ing and receiving immense slaughter, as they had to 
ascend a bank so steep that, even the gunners, from 
their intrenchments could not see the valley below, as 
Hugo says, this stronghold was taken, and the French 
seemed about to snatch the victory from the almost, at 
this juncture, nerveless grasp of the allies. 

About four p. m. the Duke of Wellington withdrew 
his forces from the edge of the plateau, and Napoleon 
thought this maneuvre was the beginning of the re- 
treat. Now comes the beginning of the end, the 
famous charge of the heavy dragoons and cuirassiers, 
with Marshal Ney at their head, and the fatal episode 
of the sunken road, which was next to the mistake in 
regard to Hougomont and the failure to take it, and 
thus turn the right flank of the allies, the most awful 
blunder of that seemingly day of blunders, on the part 
of Bonaparte. 

This magnificent column of 6,000 of the best cavalry 
of Europe, was formed in two divisions, Wathier in 
in command on the right, and Delord on the left, with 



374 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

the superb Ney at their head, and trotted forward 
in "battle's magnificently stern array," up the steep 
and muddy slope of Mt. St. Jean, in order to take the 
plateau under a plunging fire of grape and canister. 
They knew neither of the sunken road, nor the masked 
battery of sixty guns supported by twenty-six English 
squadrons, formed in thirteen solid squares, with seven 
men in the first line and six in the second, who could not 
yet see the French advance, but could hear them shake 
the very earth with the impetuosity of their charge. 

They reached the crest, the English masked battery 
reserving their fire, and then they discovered the 
awful ditch between them and the enemy, which with 
the impetus of their advance must be filled with men 
and horses, " all in one red burial blent," before the 
awful gap could be bridged over, and then the awful 
carnage commenced with more fiery intensity than ever. 

Since those days, nothing has been seen to compare 
with this impetuous charge " into the jaws of death, 
into the gates of hell," unless it be the charge of the 
600 at Balaklava. 

Wathier's column which was on the right wing of the 
charge, suffered almost exclusively by this horrible 
blunder, as Delord, who was on the left, by good fortune 
escaped the catastrophe almost entirely, but tradition 
says that 1 500 men and 2,000 horses filled this awful 
ditch. 

Then burst forth upon the devoted heads of the 
French the masked battery of sixty guns, of which 
they knew as little as they did concerning the sunken 



THE FAMOUS CHARGE. 375 

road, but nevertheless these heroes, who survived 
that awful catastrophe held that plateau for two 
long hours, without any support from infantry, 
and almost succeeded in penetrating the English 
center, although surrounded on every side by over- 
whelming numbers of the enemy, including cavalry, 
solid English squares and artillery, and had Napo- 
leon moved up the Old Guard at this time, to their sup- 
port why would he not have swept everything before 
him with resistless violence? As it was, they annihi- 
lated seven out of the thirteen solid squares, captured 
or spiked the entire battery of sixty guns, and cap- 
tured six English regimental flags, and still held a por- 
tion of the plateau. 

No wonder even Wellington, the " Iron Duke," was 
awed, and at this awful moment he ejaculated, " O ! for 
night, or Bliicher !" 

Now, comes the crisis; the gleam of distant bayo- 
nets is seen, and on both sides the question is asked 
over and over again, with the anguish born of such an 
awful moment, when the political destiny of Europe 
and the fate of a great empire hung vibrating in the 
balances, with none to foretell the end with any cer- 
tainty, "Is it Bliicher or is it Grouchy?" History 
has recorded the answer, and Bonaparte, attacked in 
front and rear, is indeed, in dire distress. 

It is now about 7 o'clock in the evening, and the 
Emperor, almost beside himself with anxiety, like 
Wellington, calls for the Old Guard, makes to them 
a last frenzied appeal, for on them hang all his. 



376 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

hopes of Empire, which is now, indeed, all but shat- 
tered, hastily forms these heroes of a hundred battles, 
and almost as many victories, into two divisions, one 
under Reille, and the other under Ney (who has been, 
as usual, in the thickest of the fight, having had five 
horses shot under him, and without as yet receiving 
hardly so much as a scratch), who are to meet at the 
British center. The column under E-eille, under the 
terrible hailstorm of grape and canister soon dissolves 
like frost before the morning sun, while Ney's column, 
as if endowed with the same matchless valor, and dis- 
regard of human life as was their gallant leader, forces 
the plateau of Mt. St. Jean, and marches resistlessly 
on over everything in their course, and pushed their 
advance almost to the very spot where Wellington 
himself sat on his horse, surrounded by his Guard. 

At this crisis, the Allies seem lost, indeed, when 
Wellington, who has concealed behind a low ridge of 
earth, a body of infantry as yet unseen by the French, 
cries out suddenly above the din of battle, ' Up 
Guards, and at 'em ; ' and the Guards, suddenly spring- 
ing to their feet, fire volley after volley into the 
ranks of the Old Guard, who, thrown into confusion, 
by this sudden attack and resistance from an unex- 
pected source, when they had been hitherto sweeping 
everything resistlessly before them like an avalanche, 
at first falter, then break, the rout is commenced, the 
British and Allies order a general advance all along the 
lines, the cry of Sauve qui jpeut, is heard on every 
side from the flying French, and soon all is over. 



AFTER THE BATTLE. 377 

Napoleon disdains to fly, but Marshal Soult, who 
had never left the Emperor's side during the entire 
day, with others of his staff, puts him on a horse, and 
literally forces him from the field. 

Sixty thousand men lie dead and wounded on this 
awful field, and Wellington, after meeting Bliicher, 
near La Belle Alliance, the farm-house which had been 
Napoleon's headquarters during the engagement, 
rides back by moonlight over the scene of carnage, 
unequaled since Cannae, while the cruel Bliicher pur- 
sues the fugitives for thirty miles through the long 
summer night, giving no quarter. 

It is said that even Wellington, callous soldier as he 
was, wept at the awful scene of carnage. 

The last act in the drama was over, and in the glow- 
ing words of Hugo, "At nightfall, Bernard and Ber- 
trand seized by the skirt of his coat, in a field near 
Genappe, a haggard, thoughtful, gloomy man, who, 
carried so far by the current of the rout, had just 
dismounted, passed the bridle over his arm, and was 
now, with wandering eye, returning alone to Water- 
loo. It was Napoleon, the immense somnambulist of 
the shattered dream, still striving to advance." 

It is not a little curious, that Napoleon at the time 
of the battle, made light of Wellington's capacity as a 
General, and Wellington since, on many occasions, has 
decried in a rough, blunt way (which, certainly reflects 
no credit upon either his head or his heart), the char- 
acter of Napoleon, and his talent as a general. 

Hugo, however, says, that " Waterloo was a battle 



378 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

won by a General of the second class over a General of 
the first," and such it seems to us, must be the impar- 
tial verdict of history. 

Upon the day of our visit to Waterloo, our guide 
who told us in his broken English, that his father 
had helped to carry the wounded to the hospitals, and 
bury the dead after the battle, recounted to us in the 
most dramatic manner (and to me it was intensely 
interesting), the story of the battle, whilst we were 
seated around the Belgian Lion, at the top of the bat- 
tle mound of Waterloo, which of course gave us an ad- 
mirable view of the salient features of the field, as our 
guide told us the story in his excitable and intensely 
Frenchy manner, despite his amusing attempts to con- 
quer the " Queen's English." 

I remember, especially, one statement which he made 
while telling us the story of Waterloo, which occupied 
him perhaps a half hour in his broken, disjointed 
way, but interesting, nevertheless, which was this : — 

He said that prior to the battle, the Emperor was 
speaking rather disparagingly to Marshal Soult, 
regarding Wellington's military talents, when Soult 
interposed, and said, 

" Oh, no, my Emperor; you do not know him. 1 
have fought with him on the Peninsula." 

Now, we come to the personal opinion of the Duke 
of Wellington in regard to Bonaparte. 

Among the many interesting features of the " Cor- 
respondence and Diaries of John Wilson Croker," just 
published in New York, are Croker' s notes of Conver- 



WELLINGTON AND BONAPARTE. 379 

sations with the Duke of Wellington," taken down as 
they occurred. 

The following extracts relate mainly to Napoleon 
and Waterloo, and for that reason, we reproduce them 
here, believing that they will be found both valuable 
and interesting. 

Speaking of Bonaparte, the Duke said: — 

*' I never was a believer in him, and I always thought 
that in the long run, we should overturn him. He 
never seemed at his ease, and, even in the boldest 
things he did, there was always a mixture of appre- 
hension and meanness. I used to call him Jonathan 
Wild, the Great, and at each new coup' he made, T 
used to cry out, ' Well done, Jonathan,' to the great 
scandal of some of my hearers." 

*' But the truth was, he had no more care about what 
was right or wrong, just or unjust, honorable or dis- 
honorable than Jonathan, though his great abilities, 
and the great stakes he played for, threw the knavery 
into the shade." 

*' Posterity will hardly believe the success and ex- 
tent of that system of darkness which Bonaparte 
spread over France, but it is so complete that even I, 
who had been for so many years in contact with his 
armies, and was now for months on his frontier, was 
glad to glean from any precarious and humble sources, 
some knowledge of the real state of the interior." 

<' The best of all the publications (about Bonaparte), 
is that of Baron Fain. All the dictations to Montho- 
louj Gourgaud, and Las Casas, are of little real 



380 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

authority. They are what Bonaparte, after consider- 
ation, thought it expedient to represent things to have 
been, and not what they were. Any accurate reader 
will find them to be made-up stories, full of contradic- 
tions, but we who know the affairs of our time, know 
that they are full of falsehoods." 

napoleon's watch. 

" Bonaparte's mind was, in its details, low and un- 
gentlemanlike. I suppose the narrowness of his early 
prospects and habits stuck to him; what we under- 
stand by gentlemanlike feelings, he knew nothing at 
all about ; I'll give you a curious instance." 

*' I have a beautiful little watch, made by Breguet, 
at Paris, with a map of Spain most admirably enameled 
on the case. Sir Edward Paget bought it at Paris, and 
gave it to me. What do you think the history of this 
watch was — at least the history that Breguet told 
Paget, and Paget told me? " 

" Bonaparte had ordered it as a present to his 
brother, the King of Spain, but when he heard of the 
battle of Vittoria — he was then at Dresden, in the 
midst of all the preparations and negotiations of the 
armistice, and we would think sufficiently busy with 
other battles — when he heard of the battle of Vitto- 
ria, I say, he remembered the watch he had ordered 
for one whom he saw would be king of Spain, and 
with whom he was angry for the loss of the battle, and 
he wrote from Dresden to countermand the watch, 
and if it should be ready, to forbid its being sent. 



Wellington's opinion. 381 

The best apology that one can make for this strange 
littleness is, that he was offended with Joseph ; but, 
even in that case, a gentleman would not have taken 
the moment, when the poor devil had lost his chateaux 
en Espagne to take away his watch also. 

*' All those codicils to his will, in which he be- 
queathed millions to the right and left, and, among 
others, left a legacy to the fellow who was accused of 
attempting to assassinate me; the property he really 
had he had already made his disposition of for the 
payment of all those other high-sounding legacies, 
there was not the shadow of a fund. He might as well 
have drawn bills for ten millions on that pump at Aid- 
gate. (We had on our way driven past it. ) While he 
was writing all these magnificent donations he knew 
that they were all in the air, all a falsehood. For my 
part, I can see no magnanimity in a lie, and I confess, 
that I think one who could play such tricks but a 
shabby fellow." 

BITS OF WATERLOO. 

We talked of Lamartine's description of Bonaparte's 
weakness, and even cowardice, toward the close of 
Waterloo. He said: — 

*' Of course I could see nothing about it, but I can 
hardly believe it. I think that, even with ordinary 
men a great interest would overcome personal fear." 

Croher. Perhaps it is as true as your having had 
eight horses knocked down, or killed under you. 
Copenhagen must have been a very old horse, when 



382 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

I saw him last at Strathfieldsaye, if you rode him at 
Copenhagen. 

Duke. Oh, no. He was not named from my having 
ridden him at Copenhagen ; his dam was a blooded mare 
which Tom Grosvenor had in the expedition to Copen- 
hagen, and he called her foal by that name, so that he 
must have been foaled after 1806. Grosvenor sold 
him to Charles Stewart, now Londonderry, of whom, 
when he left the peninsula, I bought him, and mounted 
no other horse at Waterloo. 

WELLINGTON ON THE ART OF WAR. 

In coming to see me (as he had done the day but 
one before September 2nd) he (the Duke) had chosen 
to walk from the station to our house, and without 
even a guide. He said he had found it a rough walk, 
and the ground intersected in a way he had not ex- 
pected, so 1 said to him: — 

" It seems you forgot to guess what was at the other 
side of the hill." 

This was in allusion to a circumstance which had 
occurred between him and me, some thirty years be- 
fore. When traveling on the North road we amused 
ourselves by guessing what sort of a country we should 
find on the other side of the hills we drove up, and 
when I expressed surprise at some extraordinary good 
guesses he had made, he said : — 

*< Why, I have spent all my life in trying to guess 
what was at the other side of the hill." 

I had reminded him of this, just as we were driv- 



THE ART OF WAR. 383 

ing across the ravine that had impeded him, and he 
turned around to Mrs. Croker to explain it to her, 
adding; — 

"All the business of war, and, indeed, all the busi- 
ness of life, is to endeavor to find out what you don't 
know by what you do; that's what I call 'guessing 
what was at the other side of the hill ! ' " 

He said the perfection of practical war was, to move 
troops as steadily and coolly, on a field of battle, as 
on a parade. " Soult's fault was that, though a great 
strategist, he never seemed to know how to handle the 
troops after the battle had begun." 

I then told him what Guizot told me of Lannes hav- 
ing said that " the greatest general was he whom the 
cannonade only served to make him hear all the better, 
and the smoke to make him see so much the more 
clearly." {^^ he plus grand General etait celui qui la 
cannonade faisait mieux entendre^ et que la fumee 
faisait voir plus clair).^' 

Duke. " Humph ! " (^A pause.) " That's only a 
cleverer phrase for what I have been just saying — sang 
froid — presence of mind 1 but that is not enough ! 
The mind, besides being cool, must have the art of 
knowing what is to be done, and how to do it." 

In this connection it may not be amiss to say that 
it was Wellington's opinion that " Massena was 
the only one of Napoleon's Marshals who had any 
pretensions to a comparison with him, and that 
Bonaparte himself was, with his prestige, worth 40,000 
men." 



384 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 



"UP, GUARDS, AND AT EM. ' 

" I certainly did not draw my sword. I may have 
ordered, and I dare say, I did order, the charge of 
the cavalrj^ and pointed out its direction ; but I did 
not charge as a common trooper. 

" I have at all times been in the habit of covering, 
as much as possible, the troops exposed to the fire of 
the cannon. I place them behind the top of rising 
ground, and make them sit and lie down, the better to 
cover them from the fire. 

"After the fire of the enemy's cannon the enemy's 
troops may have advanced, or a favorable opportunity 
of attacking might have arrived. What I must have 
said, and possibly did say, was : ' Stand up, guards,' 
and then gave the commanding officers the order to 
attack. My common practice in defensive position 
was to attack the enemy at the very moment at which 
he was about to .attack our troops." 

NOW, " LOOK ON THIS PICTURE AND THEN ON THIS. 

Says a recent issue of the Commercial- Gazette, of 
Cincinnati: — 

"About six years ago, the late Mr. Adelbert J. 
Doisy de Yillargeunes, of Cincinnati's suburb. College 
Hill, wrote some recollections of his long and eventful 
life, and they have just been published in a neat book, 
edited by Miss Louise J. Doisy, daughter of the auto- 
biographer. Tt seems strange that a Cincinnatian, 
w^ho passed away recently, should have fought against 



VAKIOUS OPINIONS. 385 

Wellington in Spain, and have been personally ac- 
quainted in manhood with Sir Walter Scott, before 
the great. novelist was known to the world. 

"Lieut. Doisy says truly, * that the mass of soldiers 
in a great battle see but a small part of the evolutions, 
and often do not understand the bearing of their own 
movements executed by order.' ' Speaking for my- 
self,' he remarks, ' I declare that after an engage- 
ment worth the appellation of a battle, I have 
invariably learned the particulars of it two or three 
days later from the bulletins of headquarters.' 

Lieut. Doisy, speaking of having been the guest of 
Sir Walter Scott, on two or three occasions, at Melrose 
Abbey, says ; — 

" The general tenor of the conversation is fixed 
immutably in my remembrance. Our leading topic 
was not general politics, but minute details connected 
with the French army, and, above all, traits and anec- 
dotes respecting Napoleon, seemed to have an absorb- 
ing interest for our host, who, we remarked, incessantly 
contrived to lead back the conversation to the subject, 
if it happened to have diverged from it. As may be 
imagined, we took care to say nothing unfavorable to 
the character and honor of our beloved Emperor. 
Little did we suspect that our host was then preparing 
a work, published ten years later, under the title of 
'A Life of Napoleon Bonaparte.' " 

'' In this unfair production, which is a stain on the 
name of its otherwise illustrious author. Sir Walter 
Scott, relates anecdotes and circumstances connected 

25 



386 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

with the Emperor, many of which were communicated 
to him by us, but taking care to accompany each recital 
with sarcastic innuendoes and self -invented motives of 
action, derogatory to the honor of Napoleon." 

Lieutenant Doisy preserved throughout life a warm 
affection for Napoleon Bonaparte. "It often hap- 
pened," he writes, "that sudden acclamations of 
* Vive V Empereur ' stirred the humors of our bivouac 
fires. This often occurred from the enthusiasm of 
the soldiers at the recital of some trait in the life of 
their idolized chief. The strict sense of justice, the 
generosity of Napoleon toward those who had served 
well, or toward the families of those who had fallen ; 
his severe surveillance over the conduct of contractors 
for the supply of the troops, the commanding influence 
which he unaffectedly exerted over his most distin- 
guished generals ; all these aroused the enthusiasm of 
our soldiers at the mere recital of some agreeable trait 
in the acts o^ their idol.'* 

I do not know that I can conclude this imperfect 
sketch of Waterloo, in any better manner than by let- 
ting Wellington assume the character of Brutus, and 
Napoleon that of Cassius, in their famous quarrel in 
the play of " Julius Cassar: " — 

Cassius. Brutus, bay not me ; I'll not endure it. 
You forget yourself to hedge me in ; I am a soldier, I ; 
older in practice, abler than yourself to make condi- 
tions. 

Brutus. Go to; You're not, Cassius. 

Cassius. Is it come to this ? 



NAPOLEON LIKENED TO CASSIUS. 387 

Brutus. You say, you are a better soldier. Let it 
appear so; make your vaunting true, and it shall 
please me well ; for mine own part, I shall be glad to 
learn of noble men. 

Cassius. You wrong me every way. You wrong 
me, Brutus ; I said an elder soldier, not a better. Did 
I say, better? 

Brutus. If you did, I care not. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



ANTWEEP TO LONDON. 

the next morning, August 13th, we took the train for 
Antwerp, which is only distant about an hour an 
a half by rail from Brussels, where we spent the day in 
" doing " the picture galleries, etc., and went on board 
the steamer Avilonat five p. m., for our voyage across 
the North Sea on our return to England, and then we 
had seen the last of the continent of Europe, most of 
us, no doubt, forever. 

There is not much to be seen in the city of Antwerp 
to amuse and instruct the tourist in comparison with 
many other of the cities of the Continent, which 
we had visited; but, nevertheless, there are several 
things to be seen here worth noting, which I shall 



388 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

proceed to do, in order that I may not omit some men- 
tion, at least, of any place which we have visited, 
and as Eubens, the prince of Flemish painters, lived 
here, and his masterpiece, the *' Descent from the 
Cross," is to be seen here in a rather fine old cathe- 
dral, we will give the city a passing notice at any 
rate. 

The city of Antwerp has about 180,000 inhabitants, 
and was founded as early as the seventh century. It 
is the principal seaport of Belgium, and has an exten- 
sive traffic with Great Britain and Germany. It is sit- 
uated on the river Scheldt, about sixty miles from the 
North Sea, which is here about twelve miles wide, and 
at high tide is thirty feet deep, thus allowing ships of 
the largest tonnage to come up to the magnificent docks 
of the city, which, though, of course, much less in ex- 
tent than those of Liverpool, will compare favorably 
with them. 

Its highest period of prosperity was in the six- 
teenth century, when it is said that the city contained 
125,000 inhabitants, and when thousands of vessels 
lay in the Scheldt at one time, and a hundred or more 
would arrive and depart daily. 

About the close of the fifteenth century, under the 
celebrated Emperor, Charles V., Antwerp was, per- 
haps the most prosperous and wealthy city on the Con- 
tinent, surpassing even Yenice itself, "the Queen of 
the Adriatic." 

Great fairs were held here which attracted merchants 
from all parts of the civilized world. At this time 



THE CITY OF ANTWEEP. 389 

more than a thousand commercial firms had established 
themselves in this ancient Flemish city. 

However, the Spanish Inquisition in the sixteenth 
century, and the cruelties of the infamous Duke of 
Alva had a woful effect on the city of Antwerp, which, 
during the wars of the Low Countries, drove many 
thousands of her best citizens to seek refuge in Eng- 
land, where they established silk factories, and proved 
an invaluable addition to English commerce. 

In 1576 the city was pillaged by the cruel and licen- 
tious Spanish soldiery and lost 7,000 of its inhabitants 
by fire and sword. 

It afterwards suffered severely during a siege of 
fourteen months, followed by its capture by Duke 
Alexander of Parma in 1585, when the population was 
reduced to 85,000, and in 1589 the population had 
dwindled away to 55,000. 

In August, 1794, the French obtained possession of 
Antwerp, re-opened the navigation of the Scheldt, and 
dismantled the forts erected by the Dutch at the mouth 
of the river, which they had erected to further injure 
the Flemish by preventing their vessels from navigat- 
ing the Scheldt. 

Napoleon caused a harbor and new quays to be con- 
structed between the years 1804-13, at a cost of 
$3,000,000 in consequence of a decree which consti- 
tuted Antwerp the principal naval station of the north- 
west coast of France. 

This, however, was not the only reason for this step. 
His mighty genius had conceived the vast and hazard- 



390 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

ous design of invading England, and as Boulogne had 
not harbor room sufficient to hold the fleet which would 
be necessary for that gigantic project, he cast about 
him for another convenient harbor, and finding Ant- 
werp both convenient to England, and suited by its 
natural advantages for a base of operations, he chose 
this city for that purpose. 

After the bombardment of the citadel in 1830, and 
after the memorable siege of 1832, the unfortunate city 
presented a scene of frightful desolation, and it was 
many years before she began to recover from these 
calamities. 

In 1832 the city was occupied by the Dutch General 
Chasse, at the head of 5,000 men, and was besieged 
by a French army of 55,000 men, commanded by Mar- 
shal Gerard, who endeavored to compel the Dutch to 
evacuate Belgium entirely, in accordance with the 
Treaty of London of November 15, 1831. 

The siege was directed by Gen. Haxo, who was the 
same artillery officer who was sent out by Napoleon, on 
the fatal morning of Waterloo, to reconnoitre the 
enemy's front, but who, by some fatality, was unable 
to discover the enemy's masked battery of sixty guns 
directly in their center, and which blunder had so much 
to do with the issue of that celebrated battle. 

Chasse held out for nearly a month, and only capitu- 
lated when the fort was almost reduced to a heap of 
ruins. 

Antwerp is the principal arsenal of the kingdom of 
Belgium, and one of the strongest fortresses in Europe. 



FLEMISH ART. 391 

Since 1859 a number of advanced works have been 
constructed on modern principles, and the city and 
river are defended by broad and massive ramparts up- 
wards of twelve miles in length, and at about this dis- 
tance from the city are two strong fortresses, one on 
either bank of the river, which effectually command the 
passage. It is calculated that it would require an 
army of 170,000 men to besiege it effectually, and 
part of the environs can be laid under water, which 
has, from time immemorial, been one of the methods 
adopted in the Low Countries of driving out an invad- 
ing army, by cutting the dikes and flooding the country. 

It is said that the Antwerp school of painting held a 
subordinate rank during the earlier period of Flemish 
art, and was greatly surpassed by those of Bruges and 
Ghent. But as these cities gradually lost their artis- 
tic, as well as their commercial importance, the pros- 
perity of Antwerp increased rapidly, and when she at 
length attained the enviable distinction of being one 
of the wealthiest cities in the world, she also, in the 
opinion of competent critics, became a cradle of art 
second, perhaps, to none but Florence. 

During this Golden Age of Antwerp, flourished 
'Rubens facile pt'inceps, then Van Dyck, Teniers, Quen- 
tin, Matsys, Jordaens, De Craeyer, Sighers, Snyders, 
and numerous other artists of less note aad distinc- 
tion. 

Antwerp, having a population almost exclusively 
Flemish, resembles a Dutch or German city in many 
characteristics, affording as complete a contrast to 



392 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Brussels, the capital, only fifty or sixty miles away, the 
latter being French to the core, apparently, as can well 
be imagined. 

The numerous masterpieces of painting which it 
possesses afford, it is said, one of the best evidences 
of its mediaeval prosperity. 

The fascinating influence of Rubens, of which we 
had already seen many beautiful specimens in the 
Louvre at Paris, can not be properly appreciated with- 
out a visit to Antwerp, where his finest works are pre- 
served. 

Rubens, the first of Flemish painters, who was en- 
nobled by Philip IV. of Spain, and knighted by 
Charles I. of England, lived at Antwerp in a style of 
great magnificence, and possessed an extensive, and 
very valuable collection of works of art. A portion 
of this collection, sold after his death, is said to have 
realized $100,000. 

Van Dyck, who, perhaps, ranks next to Rubens, was 
born in 1599, and was a pupil of Rubens, about 1615. 
In 1623, he studied in Italy, and finally reached great 
eminence as a portrait painter, but his famous career 
was cut short by an untimely death at the age of forty- 
two. He also was knighted by Charles I. 

David Teniers, "the younger," so-called, because 
more famous than his father, also a painter, ranks 
probably as third in this glorious galaxy of artists, 
and was appointed court painter, by the Arch-Duke 
Leopold William, Stadth older of the Netherlands, and 
he also enjoyed a high reputation in other cities of 



FLEMISH MASTERS. 393 

Europe. After an industrious and highly successful 
career, he died at the advanced age of eighty-four, 
outliving Eubens twenty years, and living twice as 
long as Teniers. 

In our own times, Antwerp has made a vigorous 
effort to retain the artistic pre-eminence which it so 
proudly maintained during the seventeenth century ; 
and it is said, by those conversant with the subject, 
that the revival of art which took place towards the 
end of the first quarter of the present century (which 
might perhaps be termed, with perfect propriety, the 
" second Renaissance," so to speak "), took its rise in 
Antwerp. 

The most noted of the painters, who showed great 
zeal in the return to the early Flemish school of art, 
was Hendrik Leys, who lived from 1815 to 1869, and 
is known as the founder of the *' Archaic school." 

It is said, of this artist, that he not only gave the 
preference to the subjects used in the fifteenth and six- 
teenth centuries, but that he also designed, painted, 
and grouped in precisely the same style as the painters 
of that epoch. The resemblance of these pictures to 
the canvases of the Middle Ages is said to be strik- 
ing. 

The Dutch painter. Alma Tadema, who is now settled 
in London, where he is reaping both fame and fortune, 
was a pupil of Leys, and is perhaps the most famous 
living exponent of the " Archaic style," which is find- 
ing many admirers. 

The day our party spent at Antwerp was a fete day 



394 A KNiaHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

in honor of Henry Flamande, a Flemish poet of some 
note, and the principal streets were thronged with 
thousands of people, the buildings were gaily deco- 
rated, and there was quite a fine and lengthy proces- 
sion, with numerous bands of music, which passed 
directly by the hotel at which our party were stopping. 
Of course, we directed our steps at once to the 
cathedral, near which is a public square, called the 
Place Verte, which is adorned by a statue of Rubens 
in bronze. It was erected in 1840, the figure being 
thirteen feet in height, and the pedestal about twenty 
feet. The statue has, at its feet, scrolls and books, 
also the brush, palette and hat, which are said to be 
allusions to the various pursuits of the artist, as a dip- 
lomatist and statesman, as well as a painter. 

The Cathedral of Notre Dame, is the largest and 
most beautiful Gothic church in the Low Countries, 
and is like most others we had seen in Europe, in the 
favorite form of the Latin cross, with triple aisles, and 
dates back to 1352. The nave of the church is about 
400 feet in length, its width (except at the transept), 
is about 175 feet, and at the transept about 225 feet, 
and the height about 130 feet. The vaulting is sup- 
ported by 125 pillars, which makes the interior view 
quite imposing. Its area is about 70,000 square feet, 
while that of Cologne Cathedral is 87,000 square feet, 
St. Paul's in London, 109,000, and that of St. Peter's 
at Rome, 212,000 square feet. The view from the 
tower, which is 402 feet high, is said to be very fine; 
but as we were pressed for time, I believe that none 



RUBENS' MASTERPIECE. 395 

of our party made the ascent. It is said that 514 
steps lead to the first gallery, and 108 more to the sec- 
ond and highest. 

The spire at the top of the tower dates from 1592, 
The chimes found in this tower are among the finest 
in Belgium, consisting of ninety bells, the smallest of 
which is said to be only fifteen inches in circumference, 
while the largest, which was cast in 1507, weighs eight 
tons. 

The south tower has only reached 113 feet of its pro- 
jected height. They say that Charles V. , before whom 
Luther underwent his terrific ordeal at Worms, used 
to say that this elegant specimen of Gothic architec- 
ture ought to be preserved in a case, and Napoleon is 
said to have compared it to a piece of Mechlin lace. 

Of course, as soon as you enter the south transept, 
which is nearest the Place Verte, or public square, above 
referred to, you hasten to feast your eyes uponEubens' 
masterpiece, the " Descent from the Cross," which 
depicts so graphically, and yet so piteously, the feat- 
ures of the dead Savior of mankind, and which, if I 
may be pardoned for using a kind of Hibernianism on 
the subject, *« depicts death to the very life," so to 
speak. This picture, like many you see in Europe has 
wings or companion pictures, which fold over the cen- 
tral picture, and thus serve as a covering for it. On 
the inside of the wings, are the Salutation and the Pres- 
entation in the Temple, and on the outside St. Christo- 
pher carrying the infant Savior, and a Hermit. The 
Virgin Mary in a blue robe, and the figure with a 



396 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

basket in the wings, are portraits of the master's first 
wife and daughter respectively, and by some it is under- 
stood that Eubens himself is one of the principal fig- 
ures in this remarkable picture. 

A competent and Judicious critic says of this master- 
piece that " the arrangement of the whole is most mas- 
terly and Judicious, the figures not too ponderous and 
the coloring rich and harmonious, while a degree of 
sentiment is not wanting, so that this picture is well 
calculated to exhibit Rubens' wonderful genius in the 
most favorable light." 

" The Elevation of the Cross," which is regarded by 
the critics as inferior is, nevertheless, a magnificent 
work. The scene represented is much fuller of life 
and animation than the other, but in its general effect 
and execution falls short of the "Descent from the 
Cross." 

There is another picture by Rubens, called the As- 
sumption, which ranksnext to those two famous ones, 
but is far behind them, either in design or execution. 
The Virgin, singulafly enough, represented by Rubens' 
wife in this case, is depicted among the clouds, sur- 
rounded by an angelic choir, below whom figure the 
twelve Apostles and others. 

Some humorous critic, but whom I know not, has 
an amusing, though, perhaps, a trifle irreverent criti- 
cism, of this picture, which I will give below, and here 
end my account of the Cathedral, which contains many 
other pictures of note, but which I have neither time 
nor space to speak of any further. 



THE MUSEUM. 397 

*'Fat Mrs. Rubens," says the rather good-natured 
critic, "is planted as firmly and comfortably among 
the clouds, as if in an easy chair, gazing with phleg- 
matic composure on the wondrous scene, which she 
witnesses in her aerial flight, and betraying not the 
faintest symptom of ecstacy or emotion. Ought she 
not to be ashamed to sit there in her flimsy attire, and 
represent a goddess — and a Virgin too ? ' ' 

You must not fail to see, near the door of the tower 
the old well, protected by a wonderful canopy of iron 
hammered out by the famous hand of Quentin Matsys, 
the blacksmith-painter of Antwerp. There is a little 
romance connected with Quentin Matsys, which says that 
to win the daughter of an Antwerp artist he renounced 
his skillful hammer, and took up the brush and palette, 
whereby he became famous, as well as won the choice 
of his heart. 

The next and chief remaining place of interest, in 
Antwerp, is the Museum, which is an exclusive picture 
gallery established in the church of the old Franciscan 
monastery, the rooms of which are now occupied by the 
"Academy of the Fine Arts," and which is open all 
the year round, admission free. Just before you enter 
the garden, in which the old monastery, now the mu- 
seum, is situated, is a fine bronze statue of Van Dyck. 
There are said to be about 650 pictures here, collected 
from the suppressed monasteries, and churches of Ant- 
werp, which are well classified and arranged in accord- 
ance with the different schools of Flemish art. 
Rubens has twenty-two pictures in one collection. 



398 , A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Soon after you pass into the entrance hall, you no- 
tice several busts of former members of the Academy. 
The most striking piece of statuary to be seen here is 
a colossal marble bust of Rubens erected in 1877, on a 
lofty bronze base, on the three-hundredth anniversary 
of the birth of the great artist. A remarkable scene 
bursts upon the eye as soon as you have entered the 
entrance hall, when you behold the magnificent fres- 
coes by the artist Keyser, who took his subjects from 
the history of the city of Antwerp, but of which you 
obtain the best view from the top of the staircase, 
which conducts the spectator to the grand salon, 
where are to be found the masterpieces of Flemish art. 

The principal painting over the entrance, and the 
large scenes on the right and left wall, contain the 
whole of the Antwerp artists, fifty-two in the first 
fresco, and forty-two in each of the last two, making 
the total number of Flemish artists, 136, which will 
give some idea of the vast extent and variety of Flem- 
ish art, from the number of artists engaged in painting 
the pictures of that school. 

I shall not say much in regard to this famous collec- 
tion, as this sketch of Antwerp has gone far beyond 
the limits I at first intended, and has required the con- 
sultation of numerous authorities, but I shall speak of 
one picture, the Crucifixion, by Rubens, but which is 
considered by many his masterpiece, instead of the 
"Descent from the Cross," and, therefore, I mention 
this famous picture more at length. This picture is said 
to be remarkable for dramatic effect, and is not want- 



THE PANOEAMA, 399 

ing in sentiment. Longinus, the Roman officer, is seen 
mounted on a grey horse, piercing the side of the 
Savior with a lance. The penitent thief is seen, in- 
voking the Savior, for the last time, who says to him, 
"this night shalt thou be with me in Paradise." 
Around the foot of the Cross are grouped various fig- 
ures, all painted with remarkable power and fidelity, 
and it is no great wonder that many should compare 
this great picture favorably with the ' ' Descent from 
the Cross." 

This finished up our visit to Antwerp, with the ex- 
ception of the visit to the panorama of Waterloo, which 
fixed more indelibly in our minds the salient features 
of the bloody scene, whose historic ground we had 
trodden only the day before. We saw Bonaparte sit- 
ting calmly on his white horse, surveying the scene of 
carnage through his field-glass, near him, the perfidious 
Lacoste, who caused the disaster of the sunken road ; 
the gallant Ney, bareheaded, and waving his sword 
proudly aloft while leading the charge which met such 
a terrible mishap in the hollow way ; Wellington, sitting 
on his horse, cool and imperturbable, amongst the 
solid squares of his devoted English Guards, Hougo- 
mont and La Haye afire in the distance, the ground 
strewn with the dead, among them many Scotch High- 
landers in their picturesque uniforms, the redness of 
their scarlet plaids seeming to vie with the bloody 
scenes around them ; the French cavalry, attempting to 
pierce the solid squares of the Allies, or riding around 
them in hot defiance; all this presented a spectacle 



400 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

never to be forgotten. I was so much wrapped up in 
my surroundings, that I was the last one of our party 
to leave the place. 

About 4 p. m. we left the hotel for the steamer, 
which was to take us back to England. We found our 
vessel small and uncomfortable, bjit the sea was as 
smooth as a mill pond, and we had none of the trouble 
which the party, who crossed from London direct, met 
with, they having given us, at Interlaken, graphic de- 
scriptions of what they suffered in the passage of the 
North Sea, which is said to be noted for its roughness. 
They predicted dreadful things for us the Sunday we 
parted with them at Interlaken ; but, luckily, all their 
dreadful predictions came to naught. I arose early 
the next morning, and had the pleasure of seeing the 
sun rise out of the North Sea, a sight which was most 
beautiful, and which I shall not soon forget. 

We landed at Harwich about seven o'clock a. m., 
and right glad was I to get back to old England, where 
I could hear on every hand the vernacular of my native 
land, instead of the barbarous and unknown jargon, 
to which we had been subjected for the past few weeks. 
After a short delay, taken up in inspecting our baggage, 
we found ourselves on the way up to London, where 
we arrived about noon, and I soon found myself once 
more comfortably installed at the Midland Grand 
Hotel, where I expected to stay for the next few days, 
before starting down to Scotland. 

During these latter days I saw a great many things, 
which I had neither time nor opportunity to see on my 



THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 401 

first visit to the great metropolis a few weeks earlier, 
among which were trips to Hampton Court and Wind- 
sor Castle, visits to the British Museum, and also the 
smaller one in Kensington, which is, I think, much more 
interesting to the ordinary observer than the British 
Museum, the Museum of Sir John Soane, which, though 
small, is well worthy of a visit ; the Albert Memorial, 
the National Fisheries Exposition, which was then in 
full blast, rides on the underground railways, trips on 
the fussy little steamboats, on the Thames, with a last 
visit to Westminster Abbey and the old Tower. All 
these things, and mores, kept me busily engaged during 
my stay there, of which I shall now speak more in 
detail. 

The British Museum was the first place I visited 
after I had gotten fairly installed, for the second time, 
at the Midland^ Grand Hotel, and certainly there is 
enough there to interest the antiquarian and the 
scientist for weeks and months; but, as I said above, 
aside from the collection of famous autographs, and 
historical and literary curiosities, which is to be found 
there, one must have a spice of the antiquarian and 
scientist combined, and perhaps a little more, to begin 
to do justice to that vast and costly collection of 
antique and mediaeval curiosities. 

The buildings which contain this vast collection 
cover over seven acres of ground, and cost more than 
$5,000,000, and their contents are, of course, simply 
invaluable, and totally incalculable from any financial 
standpoint. You may obtain some idea of the varied 

26 



402 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

contents of this, the most famous thesaurus, or treasure 
house, of this kind in the world, from the fact that it 
embraces eleven different departments : mineralogy, 
palaeontology, zoology, prints and drawings, botany, 
coins and medals, British mediaeval antiquities, Greek 
and Roman antiquities, Oriental antiquities, and 
printed books and manuscripts. 

The library contains the enormous number of 
1,300,000 volumes, acquired partly by copyright, 
partly by purchase, and partly by donation or bequest, 
and is being increased at the rate of 20,000 volumes a 
year, as there is a law in force in England dating from 
1814, which requires that a copy of every book which 
is printed in the United Kingdom shall be deposited in 
the British Museum. In this library are said to be 
1,700 different editions of the Bible, and an edition of 
the Koran, or Bible of Mahomet, written in gold, and 
said to be about nine centuries old. They have a very 
fine and large reading-room, which has ample accom- 
modations for several hundred readers, which, however 
ordinarily can only be made use of by some person 
eighteen years of age, upon the recommendation of 
some person of standing or note in the city of London. 
However, I stepped up to the door-keeper and informed 
him that I was an American, and would like to see the 
reading-room, whereupon he politely opened the door 
and told me to pass in, which I did, and looked around 
for some little time. No noise of any kind is allowed 
within these sacred recesses, and it seemed, indeed, well 
calculated as a retreat for the philosopher and the 



LIBRARY ROOMS. 403 

student, although I noticed people apparently of all 
ages and all classes making use of the advantages 
afforded by this noble collection. 

In the rooms which contain the Granville and the 
King's libraries, fourteen table cases are arranged for 
the exhibition of some of the most interesting objects 
in the library. First you are attracted by the *' Block 
Books," or books printed on wooden blocks, which 
immediately preceded the invention of printing with 
movable metal types, and which, in all probability, led 
to the latter invention. They have there the first 
printed book — the great Bible, printed at Mentz, by 
Gutenberg and Faust, and believed to have been finished 
in the year 1455, though perhaps begun at an earlier 
date. There are also to be seen productions of the 
printing press in Italy, France, the Low Countries, 
and England, many of these having cuts beautifully 
illuminated and colored by hand. The wood-cuts in 
many of these books are exceedingly beautiful. These 
cases give you some idea of the history of the " art 
preservative of arts," from its swaddling infancy to 
the full and glorious fruition of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, and enable you more and more to appreciate this 
invention, which has in truth revolutionized the world. 

The first case of autographs in the Grenville Library 
contains letters sealed with the sign manual of four 
men of remarkable prominence in the religious world, 
Luther, Calvin, Melancthon and Erasmus, of which 
Luther's is the most remarkable, as it touches upon 
various texts quoted in favor of purgatory, and as as- 



404 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

sertinff that a disbelief in this favorite doctrine of the 
Catholic Church is no proof of heresy. The second 
frame contains, among others, letters with the signature 
of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, who 
was burned at the stake by bloody Mary, Cardinal 
Wolsey, John Knox, Sir Philip Sidney, the favorite of 
Queen Elizabeth, and others of less note. The next 
one contains the autograph of the infamous Lord 
Bacon, *' greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind," of 
Prince* Rupert, the fiery chief tain of the Cavaliers, and 
nephew of King Charles I., *' the blessed martyr; " 
William Penn, Sir Christopher Wren, the grand old 
Freemason and architect of St. Paul's Cathedral; Sir 
Isaac Newton, and the celebrated General John 
Churchill, Duke of Marlborough. 

The next case contains autographs of the painters, 
Michael Angelo, Albert Durer, Eubens, Rembrandt, 
and Van Dyck. 

Next we see the autograph of Corneille, the great 
French dramatist, who was the grandfather of the 
heroic martyr, Charlotte Cordaj^, who stabbed the 
infamous and brutal Marat in his bath, that the Revo- 
lution might cease to deluge France in torrents of 
human blood, Boileau, Voltaire, Jonathan Swift, the 
author of Gulliver's Travels ; Addison, the famous 
essayist and author of the Spectator; Dry den, the 
poet, and Hogarth the artist. 

Among modern autographs, are those of William 
Pitt, Charles James Fox, Edmund Burke, our own 
Washington and Dr. Franklin, Lord Byron, the 



NOTED AUTOGRAPHS. 405 

Duke of Wellington, who caused Napoleon to «' pale his 
ineffectual fires " forever at Waterloo, and Lord 
Nelson, the hero of the Nile and Trafalgar, who did not 
forget to write to Lady Hamilton on the eve of that 
glorious victory, which forever dispelled Bonaparte's 
hopes of the invasion of England, but which letter the 
gallant Nelson was destined never to finish. 

Near this unfinished letter of Lord Nelson is a small 
box made from a splinter of the Victory, Nelson's flag 
ship, which was knocked off by a shot in the battle of 
Trafalgar, and containing a portion of Nelson's hair. 

Among the autographs of English and foreign sov- 
ereigns, are those of Katherine of Aragon, and Anne 
Boleyn, the innocent victims of the cruel Henry VHI. ; 
Lady Jane Grey, the rival of Bloody Mary by whom 
she and her husband, Lord Guilford Dudley, were 
beheaded; of Queen Elizabeth; two letters of Mary 
Queen of Scots, one of them praying for mercy on 
the part of Queen Elizabeth during the weary nineteen 
years of Queen Mary's imprisonment, ending with her 
death on the scaffold at Fotheringay Castle ; of James 
I., Charles I., and his cruel Judge, Oliver Cromwell, 
and of Charles H., " the merry monarch " 

There are many other autographs of great historic 
interest, but these must suffice, with the exception of 
two letters written by Napoleon the Great, one, when 
he was only an humble officer of artillery, the other in 
1805, when he was at the height of his glory, as the 
Emperor of the French, and almost the conqueror of 
the world. 



406 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Among the miscellaneous curiosities, I beheld with 
the greatest interest, the photograph of the original 
mortgage deed by which "William Shakespeare of 
Stratford upon Avon, Gentleman," leased to Henry 
Walker, citizen of London, a dwelling house, of the 
date of March 11, 1613, three years before the poet's 
death. 

Here, also, is a portion of the manuscript of Grey's 
Church-yard Elegy, and the original agreement for the 
sale of Milton's Paradise Lost, to Samuel Lymans, 
printer, which was $25 down, and $25 when 1,300 
copies of the first edition should have been sold, and 
so on for successive editions. The first edition was 
not exhausted for seven years, and in 1690, Milton's 
widow sold all her interest in this grand poem for 



Talent, certainly, in those days, did not meet with 
such sudden recognition as it seems to in modern 
times, and well it is for the guild of modern authors 
that such is not now the case, for certainly, 
as a precedent, the financial success of Milton 
even with all his splendid and mighty genius, is not 
calculated to enthuse the literary tyro of the nine- 
teenth century. 

Among other interesting souvenirs here, are a pen 
sketch of the battle of the Nile, drawn by Lord Nelson 
with his left hand, his only one ; a list, in the handwrit- 
ing of Lord Wellington, of the cavalry under his com- 
mand just before Waterloo ; the very prayer-book used 
by Lady Jane Grey on the scafibkl ; the original will, 



PRINTS AND DRAWINGS. 407 

in French, of Mary Queen of Scots ; a memorandum- 
book of James, Duke of Monmouth, son of Charles 
II, and Lucy Walters, who was beheaded by his uncle. 
King James II., on account of the Monmouth Eebellion ; 
a volume written by Frederick the Gteat of Prussia, 
among its contents a paper entitled ''Reflections 
on the Military Talents of Charles XII., King of 
Sweden;" a volume of the original draft of Pope's 
translations of the Iliad and Odyssey ; an autobiography 
of Robert Burns ; manuscript of Sir Walter Scott's 
novel of Kenilworth, and the autograph draft of the last 
chapter of Lord Macaulay's incomparable and elo- 
quent history of England. 

These are only a few of the many hundreds of noted 
autographs and curiosities to be seen in this depart- 
ment. 

The exhibition of prints and drawings occupy fifty- 
four screens, twenty of which are political cartoons in 
the Kings' Library and are well worth seeing, but like 
many of the jokes in Punchy the political cartoons are 
hardly fully understood and appreciated by an Ameri- 
can, with his usual limited knowledge of English poli- 
tics. 

The cartoons were drawn by John Doyle, a noted 
English caricaturist, who was, to that country, what 
Thomas Nast is to America to-day, and number in all 
about 600 sketches, many of which are very laughable 
and amusing, but Others, as I said above, are entirely 
thrown away on the average American, for reasons 
which I have suggested. 



408 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

You, however, only see about 300 of these cartoons, 
as they are drawn on both sides. The remaining thirty 
screens contain various maps, plans, and views of 
the city of London. 

The Egyptian Gallery', with its wealth of antiquities 
from that ancient and historic land; the Assyrian 
Galleries with their precious curiosities, brought from 
ancient Nineveh, the Roman and Grecian Galleries where 
ancient sculptures reign supreme, the names of the 
artists being hidden in remote antiquity; the Elgin 
marbles, taken from the Parthenon at Athens ; the Vase 
rooms, the Bronze room, in short, the thousand and one 
attractions of this wondrous collection are absolutely 
beyond my pen, and so I Jeave them untouched, and 
the reader, if any I have, must content himself with 
only the faint suggestion of their glories, as I propose 
to stop this brief and defective sketch here, for 
the subject is undoubtedly too deep for me to pursue it 
any farther. 

A pleasant trip to Hampton Court, on the river 
Thames, twenty miles above London, comes next in 
order, and afforded an agreeable contrast to the dry- 
as-dust galleries of the British Museum filled with 
their thousandfold relics of antiquity. 

I had at first thought of going by boat on the Thames, 
but a gentleman, with whom I met, advised me not to 
risk the uncertainties of the river, and when I arrived 
there by rail, and saw how small the river was at that 
point, I was very glaH, indeed, that I had taken his 
kindly advice, for it presented a most wonderful con- 



HAMPTON COURT. 409 

trast to the stream which you see at London, which is 
constantly crowded with all manner of craft. 

This magnificent old palace, which was built by Car- 
dinal Wolsey and presented by him, though it is said 
very much against his will, to King Henry VIII., is a 
most delightful resort, only twenty miles from London, 
and is visited by hundreds of thousands of people 
every year. One day last August, 1883, which is 
known as "Bank Holiday," I saw it stated in the 
London papers that it was estimated that 50,000 people 
visited Hampton Court that day. 

There is no admission charged, and the beautiful 
palace and grounds are open to the public all the year 
round. 

It is not now used as a royal residence, but is occu- 
pied by decrepit pensioners of the British Govern- 
ment, who here find in their old age a beautiful retreat 
provided for them by the generosity of the English 
Government. 

The palace, which covers about eight acres of ground, 
became King Henry's in 1526, and you see all over 
the magnificent pile of buildings the royal monogram 
of this uxorious and cruel old king. 

This palace was the favorite residence of King 
William the HI. (the Prince of Orange), and he had 
its beautiful lawns and flower gardens laid out in the . 
Dutch fashion, which they retain to this day, and near 
here, it was that he was killed by a fall froin his 
horse. 

Many of the sovereigns of England have lived here, 



410 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

among whom may be mentioned Charles II., James 
II., and George II., Charles II., spending his time 
here with his court during the awful plague of 1666, 
when one hundred thousand people died in the city 
of London, although that most veracious chronicler, 
Daniel Defoe, who wrote the immortal *' Robin- 
son Crusoe," says that during that awful time the 
court gaily disported themselves at Oxford. Oliver 
Cromwell had one daughter to die here, and one to 
marry here, and here it was that Henry VIII., listened 
for the boom of the cannon which was to announce 
the death of Queen Anne Boleyn, and here it was that 
he took to wife Catherine Parr, making his sixth mar- 
riage. 

Here King Edward VI. , was born, and here it was he 
lived during a portion of his reign, and here Bloody 
Mary spent her honeymoon, for even she, wicked as 
she was, tasted of the sweets of married life. So 
Hampton Court is indissolubly blended with the his- 
tory of England's kings. 

After passing through a fine old gateway, and cross- 
ing a court-yard, you enter the picture galleries, 
which are, of course, the crowning glory of Hampton 
Court, by way of the King's Grand Staircase, as it is 
called, and the scene is truly dazzling. 

These grand frescoes were painted in the French style 
by Verrio, a painter, who was brought from France by 
Charles II., the "merry monarch," and the famous 
Horace Walpole says of the whole effect that "it is 
painted so ill that it seems as if Verrio had spoiled it on 



THE GUARD CHAMBER. 411 

principle; " but to me, who was however no connois- 
seur of such things, it seemed to be one of the most 
attractive pieces of frescoing I had yet anywhere wit- 
nessed. 

It represents a fine conglomeration of gods, god- 
desses, kings, emperors, and triumvirs, among them 
Apollo and the Nine Muses giving a concert, Jupiter 
and Juno, Pluto, Proserpine, Diana, Romulus, Her- 
cules, -^neas et id genus omne. 

Next, we are conducted to the guard chamber, which 
contains arms enough for a reo;iment of one thousand 
men, arranged in all manner of curious and beautiful 
designs, reminding you very much of the armory of 
the Tower of London, although, of course, on a much 
smaller scale. 

In. fact, the arrangement of both armories was de- 
signed by a Mr. Harris, a common gunsmith of the 
city of London, who, for his ingenuity, received a small 
pension. 

The palace is built in the form of a hollow square, 
and you pass from room to room all around the 
four sides, and you obtain magnificent views of 
the grounds every once in a while as you pass from 
room to room. 

I omitted to state that the grand staircase was by 
Sir Christopher Wren, of whom we have made mention 
several times before, and the inimitable wood carving 
of the various rooms by the incomparable Grinling 
Gibbons, who has never been equaled by any artist in 
that line in the world. 



412 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

There are more than one thousand pictures to be 
seen here, and, of course, I can only mention a few of 
the most noted, but there are two collections of especial 
interest, one which is called the Hampton Court 
Beauties and the other the Beauties of the Court of 
Charles II., formerly known as the " Windsor Beau- 
ties," because they formerly hung in the Queen's bed- 
chamber at Windsor Castle, whence they were removed 
to Hampton Court early in the present century. 

The famous Sir Godfrey Kneller painted the former 
collection, and Sir Peter Lely, the latter. 

The *' Court Beauties " are to be seen in the grand 
presence chamber of William III., and the " Windsor 
Beauties ' ' in the state bed room of William IH. 

Among the Hampton Court beauties, who are 
painted in all their thrilling sensuousness as though 
about to step right down out of the canvas, are to be 
seen the Countess of Essex, the Countess of Peter- 
borough, the Countess of Ranelagh, the Duchess of 
Grafton, and Margaret Lemon, the beautiful, though 
far from being the only, mistress of the famous artist 
Vandyck who was almost as noted for his licentiousness 
as he was for his skill as a painter. 

Among the Windsor Beauties, painted with all the 
skill of Sir Peter Lely, and all the sensuality of the 
times of Charles II., almost amounting to grossness, 
the most noted are the Princess Mary as Diana ; Anne 
Hyde, Duchess of York, and who became the Queen of 
England after the death of William IIL, who survived 
his wife, Qaeen Mary, who was the sister of Anne 



THE queen's gallery. 413 

Hyde, the Duchess of Kichmond, whom it is said 
that Charles II. was anxious to marry, and who was 
by far the greatest beauty of the court; the Countess 
of Rochester, the Duchess of Portsmouth, a courtesan 
of the French court, who was sent over to the court of 
Charles II. for reasons of state; the noted Duchess 
of Cleveland, whom she supplanted in the affections of 
the inconstant Charles, and besides many others of 
note, the famous Nell Gwynne, who to the last re- 
tained such a hold upon the affections of the " merry 
monarch," that almost his last words were "not to 
let poor Nelly starve." 

I had almost forgotten to mention the portrait of 
Miss Hamilton, the Countess of Grammont, which 
is regarded by some as the finest and most inter- 
esting of the collection. It is stated that this lady 
was pursued with great ardor, and was wooed and won 
by the Chevalier de Grammont, who, however, having 
sated his passion, would have thrown away his con- 
quest, as a spoiled child do'es his toys. He took 
French leave, and started to the Continent, but the 
injured lady's two big brothers, "hard behind him 
rode," and caught him in an inn at Dover, and asked 
him "if he had not forgotten something at London," 
to which he made answer : " Pardon me, gentlemen," 
I have forgotten to marry your sister," whereupon, no 
doubt thinking discretion to be the better part of 
valor, he returned to London and married the lady. 

The Queen's Gallery, which is about 175 feet long, 
contains exquisite tapestry hangings, depicting notable 



414 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

events in the life of Alexander the Great, and among 
other celebrated pictures, a portrait of Eaphael, painted 
by his own hand, and from the windows of this hand- 
some gallery, you obtain a fine view of an artificial 
river or canal, nearly a mile long, which is lined on 
both sides with double and treble rows of grand old 
lime trees, which are perhaps centuries old. In the 
drawing-room of Queen Anne are hung many pictures 
by Sir Benjamin West, the Quaker artist from Phila- 
delphia, who was much admired by King George III., 
and who was to him a most liberal patron, but judges 
of art say, that Sir Benjamin West is below medi- 
ocrity, even as an artist. The two most noted pictures 
in this room are the death of the Chevalier Bayard, 
and the death of General Wolfe on the Plains of 
Abraham. It is said, that West took his first lessons 
in painting from a tribe of Cherokee Indians, and yet 
ascended to the proud height of President of the 
Koyal Academy. Well I am proud of him as an Ameri- 
can anyhow, even though he be " damned with faint 
praise," by the critics. 

Apropos of Sir Benjamin West, *' Gath," in a 
recent letter, says that " at the time he lived the clas- 
sical taste prevailed, and you could not make a picture 
of a hod-carrier unless you clothed him in a Roman 
toga, so as to have his legs well portrayed, and that it 
was an American, by the way, who broke up that sys- 
tem of painting, old Benjamin West. When he made 
the tableau of the " Death of Gen. Wolfe " at Quebec, 
he put on everybody the clothes he wore at the time. 



ASTRONOMICAL CLOCK. 415 

Some people thought it was a terrible piece of irrever- 
ence, but one shrewd old man broke into the presence 
of the painting, looked at it carefully and finally re- 
marked ; " After this, there will be no more Romans," 
and there never have been any since. 

In the private dining room are still to be seen the 
royal couches of William III. and Queen Mary, and 
also that of George II., and, with their aged and moth- 
eaten trappings, impress one all the more with the 
truth of the old saying, that " death is no respecter of 
persons," or as the poet Horace more elegantly ex- 
presses : — 

Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede tabernas pauperum regumque turres. 

This struggling and necessarily imperfect account of 
Hampton Court might be extended many pages further ; 
in fact, to do justice to this ancient pile would "tire 
the talkative Fabius ; " but I will only note two or 
three more items before I close. 

There is a remarkable astronomical clock here, which 
was made for King Henry YIIT. in 1540, when he was 
making love to Catherine Howard, whom he after- 
wards beheaded, and which has quite a curious 
history. 

It is said that on the night of March 2d, 1619, when 
Anne of Denmark died, who was the wife of James 
I., of England, and VI. of Scotland, the clock, 
which was striking four at the moment of her death, 
stopped, and that it has done so ever since when any 
one who has long lived at the palace dies ; but, of 



416 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

course, the intelligent reader will believe as much or as 
little of this story as he chooses. 

Another curiosity is the " maze," which consists of 
a number of walks, made of hedges, about seven feet 
high, altogether a half mile in length, although the 
maze itself covers only a quarter of an acre, which are 
so curiously laid out that a stranger, once fairly within 
the meshes, can with difficulty, unless assisted by a 
guide, find his way out, it being a regular *' Cretan 
Labyrinth," and requiring the thread of Theseus to 
enable you to extricate your bewildered footsteps. 

Last of all I shall mention the famous grape vine of 
Hampton Court, which is the largest in England, if not 
in the world. It has a house built especially for it, 
and was planted in 1768. Its greatest girth^ is about 
three feet, larger than many trees, and its longest 
branch is more than one hundred feet. 

The variety is what is known as the Black Hamburg, 
and bears every year more than 1,000 bunches, which 
weigh a pound each. Forty years ago it is said that it 
sometimes bore as many as 25,000 bunches. 

The next trip of importance which I took was a visit 
to Windsor Castle, which is by far the grandest and 
most extensive residence of English royalty, to which 
Buckingham Palace, the home of the Queen when in 
London, and Marlborough House, the residence of the 
Prince of Wales, bear only a faint comjDarison. This 
glorious old castle is reached by rail from Waterloo or 
from Paddington Station, in about forty minutes, 
about the same distance as Hampton Court (twenty 



WINDSOR CASTLE. 417 

miles), and as the train darts gracefully around a curve 
and the castle flashes on the sight, the noble old strong- 
hold impresses the beholder with reverence nearly akin 
to awe. 

The Thames, in the neighborhood of Windsor Cas- 
tle, is very picturesque and winding, and from the 
latter peculiarity, this proud and ancient castle, which 
is one of the largest and most magnificent royal resi- 
dences in the world, derives its name. 

The name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon Windle- 
shore, which has been corrupted by usage to the pres- 
ent euphonious Windsor. 

The present magnificent pile, which is the second 
upon the same site, was erected by William of Wyke- 
ham, Bishop of Winchester, who was noted for his love 
of the fine arts. 

This palace was built in the reign of Edward III., 
but, of course, has grown to its present immense pro- 
portions during the reigns of successive monarchs, at 
an immense expenditure of time and money. King 
George IV. began the restoration of the Castle, and it 
I'eached its present glorious appearance in the reign of 
Queen Victoria, at an outlay of nearly $5,000,000 of 
money, which statement may give some idea of its 
vastness and magnificence. 

The clistle consists of two courts called the Upper 
and Lower Courts, which are surrounded by build- 
ings, and between these rises the Eound Tower, from 
the top of which can be seen one of the most exqui- 
site panoramas in the world, and from which it is said 
27 



418 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

a partial view of eleven English counties can be ob- 
tained. 

The visitor enters the Lower Court by way of the 
castle hill by the grand gateway known as the gateway 
of King Henry VIII. The first thing which attracts 
the visitor's attention after passing through the elegant 
gateway is St. George's Chapel, or Chapel of the 
Knights of the Order of the Garter, on your left, 
which was begun in 1474, in the late Gothic style, by 
Edward IV., and completed by Henry VIII. In this 
chapel lie buried the Duke of Kent, the father of 
Queen Victoria, and the Princess Charlotte, the daugh- 
ter of King George IV., and wife of Leopold I., King 
of Belgium. 

Here, also, is to be seen the famous monument of 
Edward III., whose warlike son was known in history 
as the " Black Prince," which, as a type of the chival- 
rous and warlike temper of King Edward, who died in 
1377, a year after his son, the "Black Prince," con- 
sists of an iron gate between two battlemented tow- 
ers, and which is said to have been hammered out by 
the famous blacksmith-painter of the city of Antwerp, 
Quentin Matsys. 

King Charles I., the victim of Oliver Cromwell, and 
the bloody Henry VIII,, with one of his six wives, 
Jane Seymour, also lie here entombed. 

Here, also, lie the remains of the Prince Imperial of 
France, who fell in Zululand in June, 1879, while fight- 
ing bravely as a volunteer in the British army, having 
joined the army in order to show tis appreciation of 



THE ROUND TOWER. 419 

the kindness and civilities which the exiled Nfipoleon 
in. and his family had received during their melan- 
choly stay in England. He is represented as reposing 
in white marble on the sarcophagus with his sword in 
hand, and on the side of his tomb is an inscription in 
French, taken from his will, which expresses his kindly 
feelings towards the English nation, etc. ; and as I stood 
and gazed upon the mausoleum, I could but think of 
the sad fate of the Napoleonic dynasty, and of the 
astounding coincidence in the end of all of them — 
Napoleon I., Napoleon III., and the Prince Imperial 
all having died exiles from their native land, and in 
circumstances how sadly altered from their former 
greatness ? 

The finest chapel, however, of all is the Albert 
Chapel, so called in honor of the noble Prince Albert, 
and which may be numbered as among one of the finest 
structures of that character in the world. 

The Kound Tower, or Keep, which was used as a 
prison down to 1660, rises on the east side of the Lower 
Court, and stands on an eminence about forty feet 
high, and there is a deep moat surrounding it on three 
sides. 

From the summit of this tower may be seen, ten 
miles away, the walls of the noted Eton College, 
which is one of the most famous of English schools, 
preparatory to entering the great universities of Ox- 
ford and Cambridge. The other two, I believe, are 
Rugby and Harrow — Rugby, notably. What school 
boy has not read " Tom Brown at Rugby," and 



420 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

*' Tom Brown at Oxford," and I had the pleasure of 
passing through that noted English town while pro- 
ceeding from London down to Scotland, while on my 
way back to my native land. This famous school 
dates back to 1440, and to King Henry VI., and the 
students, usually numbering some nine hundred, are 
among the most wealthy and aristocratic of the youth 
of England. 

In the neighborhood of Windsor Castle is to be 
seen the churchyard where Grey penned his noble 
elegy, and in which, as it should be, lie entombed his 
remains. And not far from this locality lie buried the 
remains of England's foremost orator and rhetorician, 
Edmund Burke, and of Lord Beaconsfield (Disraeli), 
one of England's greatest Prime Ministers. 

Not much now remains to be seen of the Castle, 
save what are known as the State Apartments, and 
these can be seen only in the absence of the Queen and 
the Court, and her private apartments are, of course, 
held sacred from the public eye at all times, I suppose 
in consequence of the saying thatj *' Divinity doth 
hedge about a king." However, I knew that the 
Queen had gone to her Scotch Castle, Balmoral, or I 
should not have visited Windsor at all. 

These State Chambers are well worth a visit, as they 
are ten in number, and, of course, are all decorated 
with royal luxury and profusion. They are known 
respectively as The Queen's Audience Chamber, The 
Queen's Presence Chamber, The Guard Chamber, St. 
George's Hall, The Grand Keception Room, The Wa- 



STATE APARTMENTS. 421 

terloo Chamber, The Grand Vestibule, The State 
Ante-Room, The Zuccarelli Room, and The Van- 
dyck Room, which is exclusively devoted to pictures 
by that artist, and this order of inspection, or exactly 
the reverse, is usually the order pursued. 

On the stair-case, leading to the Queen's Audience 
Chamber, I saw a large Dutch picture representing the 
" Massacre of the Huguenots," in which I was greatly 
interested, as a near and dear relative of mine, of whom, 
I believe I have before spoken, and who was herself 
descended from those noble martyrs, had written a no- 
table and successful historical novel called " The Hu- 
gunot Exiles," in which her ancestor was delineated as 
the chief actor in the drama ; but I was not long al- 
lowed to look upon the picture, as our guide led us 
rapidly from room to room. The ceiling was frescoed 
in the most beautiful manner by Verrio, the court 
painter of Charles II. 

The most noted picture in the room is a full length 
portrait of the beautiful and unhappy Mary, Queen of 
Scots, and in the background a representation of her 
execution by her relentless kinswoman, Queen Eliza- 
beth, at Fotheringay Castle in 1587, after nineteen 
years of cruel and hopeless imprisonment. 

This chamber, and the Queen's Presence Chamber, are 
both decorated with tapestry work representing por- 
tions of the history of Esther and Mordecai. The 
next room, the Guard Chamber, is the most interesting 
of the three yet visited, and the arrangement of the 
arms and armor was quite ingenious. In this room is 



422 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

to be seen a suit of armor worn by the fiery Prince 
Kupert, the nephew of King Charles I., and the chief 
commander of his Cavaliers during the Parliamentary 
wars with the Soundheads of Oliver, including the fatal 
defeats of Edge Hill, Naseby, and Marston Moor. An^ 
other relic equally interesting is a portion of the fore- 
mast of the Victory, Lord Nelson's flagship at the 
glorious battle of Trafalgar, where he lost his life dur- 
ing the engagement, the mast being completely per- 
forated by a French or Spanish cannon ball — also an 
anchor and two cannons, supposed to have been sunken 
in the sea from some vessel of the Spanish Armada, in 
1588, which was miraculously destroyed by a terrible 
storm, which saved England from, probably, the great- 
est peril she ever had confronted, until Napoleon com 
menced his preparations for the invasion of England, 
from the camp at Boulogne. There is also to be seen 
here a chair made from an elm tree, under which Well- 
ington spent some time on the eventful day of Waterloo, 
and which some patriotic Englishman, with more money 
than brains, bought and had it dug up and transported 
to England. Next you enter St. George's Hall, 
which is a grand apartment 200 feet long and more 
than thirty feet high, and as many wide. 

Here are emblazoned on the walls, the arms and in- 
signia of each Knight of the Order of the Garter, since 
1350, and which dates back to the time of King Ed- 
ward HI. 

Next comes the Grand Eeception Koom, which is 
beautifully embellished in the style of the period of 



WATERLOO CHAMBER. 423 

Louis XIV. The walls represent, in tapestry, por- 
tions of the story of Jason, while in quest of the Golden 
Fleece. In this room is the magnificent Malachite vase 
three or four feet in height, which was presented to 
the Queen by the Czar Nicholas of Russia. 

Next comes the Waterloo Chamber or Grand Dining 
Eoom, ninety-eight feet long and forty-seven wide, which 
is in the Elizabethan style, and this magnificent room, 
profusely and richly decorated, contains portraits by the 
noted Sir Thomas Lawrence, painted for King George 
IV., of many of the reigning sovereigns of Europe, as 
well as some of the eminent statesmen and warriors 
who took part in politics and in the field in the stirring 
events of the years 1814 and 1815, which resulted in 
the downfall of Napoleon, and the restoration of the 
Bourbons to the throne of France, — events pregnant 
with the fate of Europe. 

It is called the Waterloo Chamber because a number 
of portraits of distinguished officers, who served or fell 
at Waterloo, hang upon the walls, which contain, as 
above said, many of the most noted people of Europe. 
First and foremost, our attention is called to the full 
length portrait of Wellington, the noted conqueror of 
Waterloo; then the fierce and bloody Bliicher, who, as 
every body knows, saved Wellington by coming up 
when everything seemed lost for the Allies ; Gen. Sir 
James Kempt, who commanded the fifth division at 
Waterloo after the death of Sir Thomas Picton ; 
Charles, Count Alten, the commander of the third di- 
vision ; the Marquis of Anglesea, who commanded all 



424 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

the cavalry, and who left a leg upon the field that 
bloody day ; the Duke of Brunswick, killed at Quatre 
Bras on the Friday before Waterloo ; Viscount General 
Hill, who also commanded a division on that day, and 
Sir Thomas Picton, who fell, shot through the head, 
while leading his men to the charge. 

For some reason,- General Ponsonby, who also fell 
at Waterloo, does not appear in the gallery. Next 
you are introduced into the grand vestibule, which is 
a lofty apartment, and lighted from above by an octag- 
onal lantern of magnificent design, and here, you also 
see some military trophies and suits of antique armor. 
At one end is a fine statue of Queen Victoria, with 
her favorite dog, " Sharp," a beautiful Italian grey- 
hound, reclining at her feet, and looking up at Her 
Eoyal Highness, with eyes as tender and as full of 
affection as a woman's. Here, also, you see a fine full 
length portrait of George IV., by Chantrey, the em- 
inent sculptor. Next you enter the State ante-room, 
the ceiling of which is frescoed by the famous court 
painter, Verrio, and which represents a Banquet of the 
Gods. 

This room contains, perhaps, the finest wood-carving 
in the world, done by the celebrated Grinling Gibbons, 
of whom it was said : *' That he gave to wood the loose 
and airy lightness of flowers, and chained together the 
various productions of the elements with the free dis- 
order natural to each species." Here, also, is to be 
seen the famous stained glass portrait of King George 
III., in his coronation robes, above the fireplace, and 



VAN DYCK EOOM. 425 

from the glowing brush of the great Sir Joshua Rey- 
nolds. 

Visitors next enter what is known as the Zuccarelli 
Room, so-called, because it contains nine pictures by 
that artist, all of Scriptural character; the most noted 
being the meeting of Isaac and Rebecca at the well, 
and the next one of interest, is the picture called the 
"Finding of Moses," the artist having received a spec- 
ial commission from King George III. to paint this 
picture, and, what is still more rare on such occasions, 
the king allowed the artist to choose his own subject. 
There are also seven landscapes, one, representing 
Jacob tending the flocks of Laban, — these paintings 
all having been purchased by the English Consul, at 
Venice, for King George III. This room also con- 
tains a few other portraits, mostly of minor import- 
ance, except those of the first three Georges, and of 
Frederick, Prince of Wales. 

Now you are conducted to the crowning glory of all, 
the Van Dyck Room, which contains about forty por- 
traits by that celebrated painter, including one of him- 
self, a few of the most notable of which I shall mention. 
First, in interest, you notice the martyred King Charles 
I., accompanied by his equerry, who is on foot, and 
bears the King's helmet. Next, the children of the 
unhappy monarch, who are three in number : Charles, 
afterwards brought back by General Monk, at the 
Restoration, in 1660, and of whom it was said, while 
he was King Charles II., that '* he never said a foolish 
thing, nor ever did a wise one;" Mary, Princess of 



426 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Orange, and James, who afterwards became the bigoted 
and bloody Papist King, James II. Then comes Sir 
Kenelm Digby (the son of Sir Everard Digby), and 
who was executed on account of his participation in 
the Popish plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament, 
and which has made the 5th of November (Guy Fawkes' 
Day), ever memorable in England's history. Another 
picture represents five figures of the royal family, 
all full height : Prince Charles, caressing his favorite 
spaniel ; the Princess Mary, James, Duke of York, and 
the Princesses Elizabeth and Anne. There is still an- 
other single portrait of King Charles I., and still one 
more representing King Charles, his Queen, Henrietta 
Maria, and the Prince Charles, and the Princess Mary, 
all these being life-size. 

The royal stables, which cost $350, 000, are acces- 
sible at certain hours to those who have the time and 
the inclination for such things, but as 1 had neither 
the one nor the other, I amused myself by driving 
past Prince Albert's "model farm," still known as 
a Frogmore," along what is known as the Long Walk, 
which has a fine carriage drive, and on each side, a 
noble row of ancient elm trees, which extend for three 
miles, the drive ending with a fine statue of King 
George III., by the artist, Westmacott; and taking a 
hasty glance at the great park, which is said to contain 
1,800 acres, I, with great regret, took my seat in a 
railway carriage, in order to return to London, and as 
our train dashed swiftly around the curve, I looked 
back, with deep regret, on grand old Windsor Castle, 
no doubt for the last time this side the grave. 



HOUSE OF COMMONS, 427 



CHAPTER XIV. 



LONDON CONTINUED, AND EDINBOKO. 

fHAT evening, through the courtesy of the Lon- 
don divine, of whom I have before spoken, and 
who owed his admission to the fact, that one of the 
policemen of the House of Commons attended his 
church, it was my great privilege, as well as pleasure, 
to attend a meeting of the House of Commons ; but to 
my intense regret, the Lords had held a very short 
session, and adjourned before my friend and myself 
had even reached the entrance, which is known as 
Westminster Hall. I am not sure, however, that we 
could have gotten admission to the House of Lords, 
even had they been sitting, as usually, you must ob- 
tain the signature of some member of that august body 
in order to pass the gauntlet of doorkeepers, police- 
men, etc., who guard this sacred ( ?) entrance, as the 
hundred-headed dragon of mythology was wont to 
guard the golden apples of the Hesperides. 

How different all that flummery and snobbery is 
from our own American House of Representatives and 
Senators, who seem generally only too willing to show 
their constituents around when they visit the Capital, if 
for no other reason, than to try to " make their calling 
and (re)election sure." 



428 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

We saw many people in the lobbies, waiting anx- 
iously to come across some one who could give them 
the coveted entree^ and while my clerical friend, the 
Kev. William C. Beardmore, 5 Argyle Square, King's 
Cross, London, and whose church is Wesleyan Church, 
Liverpool Street, King's Cross, was looking anxiously 
through the crowd to find his much-wanted policeman, 
I had the pleasure, through him, of being introduced to 
Sir William McArthur, an ex-Lord Mayor of London, 
and member of the House of Commons at that time, 
and to Mr. Waddy, the member for Edinboro, who 
was also Queen's Counsel, which, in England, seems to 
be a prerequisite to being a judge. It seemed to me a 
curious coincidence, when I picked up an Edinboro pa- 
per a day or two after the introduction alluded to, 
which contained a severe editorial against Mr. Waddy, 
charging him with neglecting the interests of his con- 
stituents, for those of his clients. 

T will here state for the benefit of my lawyer friends, 
that an English barrister can not sue for and recover 
his fees, and this accounts for the fact that when an 
English solicitor hands a brief, as it is called, to a bar- 
rister, his fee or retainer usually accompanies it, and 
thus he gets his fee in advance, or else generally not at 
all. The solicitor prepares the case, and prepares the 
brief for the use of the barrister, who alone is author- 
ized to appear and argue the cause. 

On Saturday, when the Houses do not sit, you can 
obtain tickets to see them, from the Lord Chamber- 
lain. The Houses generally convene in February, and 



HOUSE OF COMMONS. 429 

their regular time for sitting is about 4 p. m., and this 
accounts for their frequent all-night sessions. 

A member of Parliament, that is to say of the House 
of Commons, is elected for six years, draws no salary, 
and often pays from $50,000 to $100,000 for his seat, 
owing to what is known as the " rotten-borough 
system," and hence, as a general thing, none but a rich 
man is elected to the House, and thus the House of 
Commons, which was originally intended to be a check 
on the House of Lords, and a staunch ally of the peo- 
ple, really has become, after all, the hot-bed of the 
aristocracy. 

Finally, having discovered our policeman, we ob- 
tained entrance to the Stranger's Gallery of the 
Commons, and listened to the debates for an hour or 
two, but it seemed to be an " off-night," the benches 
being very lightly filled, and not much, doing. 

The Eight Hon. Wm. E. Gladstone, First Lord of 
the Treasury, Prime Minister of England, and leader 
of the House of Commons, was absent, but the speaker, 
the Eight Hon. Sir Henry Brand, who gets $30,000 a 
year, was at his post ; and I heard a spirited debate on 
the famous quoestio vexata, or Irish question of " Home 
Eule," conducted on the one side mainly by the Hon. 
Mr. G. Otto Trevelyan, who was the under secretary 
of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and virtually the 
ruler of that country, who wrote the splendid biogra- 
phy of his uncle. Lord Macaulay (the finest by far in 
the whole range of English literature of that style of 
composition), Boswell's much-vaunted life of Dr. Sam- 



430 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

uel Johnson, the critics to the contrary notwithstand- 
ing, not being excepted by any means, which to a 
reader of delicate perceptions and sensibility, is simply 
designating by its fulsome adulation of an idol, which 
was made of very common clay indeed ; and who, 
himself, with all his ponderous learning, was extremely 
egotistical, ill-mannered, rude and overbearing, su- 
premely selfish ; and so morbidly sensitive and thin- 
skinned in regard to supposed intended slights, when 
none was even thought of by any one but himself, that 
he was habitually and often to an extent which bor- 
dered on brutality, insulting in his bearing towards 
others. 

The debate, upon the other side, was led by the far- 
famed " Irish Agitator" (as the British press delight 
in calling him), Charles Par n ell, the National Irish 
leader in the House of Commons, and who, true to his 
descent from one of the Roundheads of the great Icon- 
oclast Oliver Cromwell, is ever to be found sternly 
battling against " the right divine of kings to govern 
wrong," seconded by Mr. Gibson, who is said to be 
one of the most eloquent speakers of the House of 
Commons ; but their style of speaking differs wonder- 
fully from ours, and, I think, we may safely assume, 
that the fluency of the average orator of the " Wild 
Western Hemisphere," has hardly been equaled, ( ?) 
perhaps for a century, by any member of the House of 
Commons (unless, perhaps, by that famous and unriv- 
aled triumvirate, Burke, Pitt, and Fox) ; though in 
oratory of a very different style and caliber^ it must be 



ENGLISH ORATORY. 431 

conceded at the same time, and, in fact, oratory ( ?) as 
practiced among us, may be said to be one of the lost 
arts as far as the House of Commons, or for that 
matter, too, the average English orator is concerned. 

It may be, indeed, that Americans are so fluent 
because this glorious country of ours is, pre-eminently, 
" the land of the free and the home of the brave," and 
no less an authority than Kalph Waldo Emerson, has 
lately declared that ^^ eloquence is eminently the art 
which flourishes only in free countries;^* and he also 
maintains the doctrine that *' if there ever was a coun- 
try where eloquence is a power, it is the United States, 
because here is room for every degree of it, on every 
one of its ascending stages — that of useful speech in 
our commercial, manufacturing, railroad and educa- 
tional conventions ; that of political advice on the 
grandest theater, reaching, as all good men trust, into 
a vast future, and so compelling the best thought and 
noblest administrative ability that the citizen can offer. 

While traveling, a day or two later, from London down 
to Edinboro, I talked with a gentleman in our compart- 
ment, who told me that Trevelyan had also written the 
best biography of Chas. James Fox, the great rival of 
William Pitt, that had ever appeared. Before my infor- 
mant left our train, I found him a highly educated and 
cultivated gentleman, a graduate of Oxford, and by 
the way, a nephew of Lord Zetland, who was, a few 
years ago, the Grand Master of English Freemasons, 
the Prince of Wales now holding that exalted position. 

I was much amused, soon after entering the gallery 



432 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

of the House of Commons, upon having my attention 
^ called to the ladies' gallery, directly opposite us, and I 
noticed at once, that they were shut up behind a fine 
wire screen, and I was reminded of the menagerie busi- 
ness at once. I thought the matter over, and con- 
^S eluded that this precaution must have been taken in 
order to prevent female lobbyists from communicating 
with various members of the Commons, and thus in- 
terrupting debate, and interfering with the progress 
b of legislation, as only a "Becky Sharp" kind of a 
lobbyist can. 

As a rule, permission to be present at the debates of 
the Lower House can be obtained only from a mem- 
ber of Parliament ; but I have no doubt, that my 
friend, if he had had longer time to make the necessary 
arrangements, could easily have obtained permission 
from some of his high-toned friends, had not my only 
chance to make the visit been that night. 

The Commons is lighted from above and without by 
gas reflected through soft mellow glass, and while the 
immense chamber is beautifully lighted, you see no 
lights, and, consequently do not suffer either from the 
glare or from heat. 

The present Houses of Parliament, date from 1840, 
are of the Tudor style of architecture, and as Carlyle 
so aptly expressed it, " of the modern style of confec- 
tionery," and cover an area of eight acres. They are 
built directly on the Thames embankment, and present 
a grand and imposing riverfront of almost 1,000 feet. 
They are said to contain eleven courts, 100 staircases, 



JOHN bunyan's tomb. 433 

and 1,100 apartments, and have cost about $15,000,000, 
which is, I believe, about the cost of the capitol, at 
Washington. Of course, the various rooms are adorned 
with frescoes, paintings, and statuary, in almost ex- 
haustless profusion, but time and space both forbid that 
I should dwell longer on this topic, when there is so 
much yet to see and speak of, in that vast metropolis. 

While riding on a London 'bus, one day (which, by 
the way, was the place where I first met my friend, the 
divine, and with whom I had the pleasure of break- 
fasting, at his own home, on the folio wing day), along 
that street which, in London, is known as the " City 
Eoad," I noticed a quaint old graveyard, which juts so 
closely on the street, that I obtained a good view of 
many of the curious old tombs within it. This ceme- 
tery is known as " Bunhill Fields," and contains all 
that is mortal of two names of renown in the Christian 
world, and one especially notable. I mean John 
Bunyan, the poor tinker, who wrote the grandest and 
most perfect allegory that the genius of man has ever 
produced, and of which every one knows the name, at 
least, The Pilgrim's Progress. I quote here some 
curious verses of the day concerning Bunyan : — 

* John Bunyan was a tinker bold ; 
His name we all deligtit in, 
All day, he tinkered pots and pans 
All night he stuck to writin\ 

In Bedford Streets, bold Johnny toiled, 

An ordinary tinker; 
In Bedford jail, bold Johnny wrote, 
Old England^s wisest thinker. 
28 



434 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

"About the Pilgrims Johnny wrote, 
Who made the emigration ; 
And the Pilgrim Fathers they became 
Of the glorious Yankee nation." 

The other is Dr. Watts, who was neither a great mac 
nor a wonderful poet, but he wrote hymns endowed 
with such grand and sublime Christian faith and hope, 
that his name, too, will be handed down the ages. 

It is a little remarkable, that directly opposite this 
field, containing the Christian heroes, to whom we 
have just alluded, should be seen the chapel and house 
in which John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, 
preached and lived, and in the yard his remains lie 
buried. 

One of the most interesting monuments, however, to 
be seen in London, is the fire monument, which com- 
memorates the great fire of London, which occurred in 
1666, also the year of the great plague, which carried 
ofi' 100,000 human beings ; and to commemorate these 
two awful catastrophes, which befell the great metro- 
polis the self-same year, the great poet. Dry den, 
wrote his noted poem called Aymus Mirahilis, or the 
♦' Wonderful Year." The column stands near the spot 
where the fire originated, as nearly as could be ascer- 
tained. It stands on Fish Street Hill, near the city 
side of the London Bridge, and being 202 feet high, is 
considered to afford perhaps the finest view of the city 
of London, St. Paul's being hardly excepted. 

The top is surrounded by an urn forty-two feet in 
height, ingeniously covered with gilt, and sculptured in 



LONDON BRIDGE. 435 

such a way as to represent the fiery waves of a great 
conflagration, as they ascend towards the heavens. 

This column was designed by our old Masonic friend, 
Sir Christopher Wren, who also designed glorious old 
Saint Paul's, and was erected about ten years after the 
great fire, which raged for five days and destroyed 
460 streets, 89 churches, and 13,200 houses, the loss 
being estimated at $40,000,000. 

Near here is the London Bridge, (not the old 
London Bridge, which, until a century ago, was the 
only one across the Thames, of which historians and 
novelists have so often written, but the new bridge, 
which is 100 feet higher up the river than the old 
bridge,) which was begun in 1825, and completed in 
seven years, at a cost of $10,000,000. The famous 
old bridge was used until 1831, and then removed. 
The present bridge has five arches, the center having a 
span of 152 feet, and the bridge is 928 feet long and 
54 feet wide. 

I crossed this bridge several times, both on foot and 
on a 'bus, and the traffic is something prodigious, as it 
is estimated that 20,000 vehicles, and 100,000 foot 
passengers cross it daily. It is a sight, indeed, well, 
worth witnessing. Below this bridge is the port of 
London, where all the largest steamers and sailing- 
ships lie at anchor, as there is as yet no bridge below 
London Bridge, nor is there likely to be very soon, 
for the population of London is increasing rapidly, 
and her commerce, of course, in the same proportion. 



436 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

and they will, as commerce increases in future, need 
more dock room than ever. 

I must not omit to tell my lawyer friends that I 
rode through " Chancery Lane," which, as its name 
implies, leads through the quarter chiefly occupied by 
barristers and solicitors, several times ; and by the 
way, in Fleet Street, directly opposite Chancery Lane, 
I saw a house about three stories in height, which had 
evidently been a residence of some consequence in 
former days, part of which is now used as a barber 
shop, but on its front it bore the following inscrip- 
tion: — 

" This house was once the palace of King Henry 
VIII." 

" O, Hamlet, what a falling ofi^ was there." What 
a transition ! from having been the residence of a 
monarch to a place where they cut men's hair, and 
shave them for a sixpence. 

I was considerably interested in the Temple, which 
is on the south side of Fleet Street, because this is 
now one of the four great Inns of Court, as they are 
called, which are colleges for the study of law, and 
possess the privilege of calling to the Bar, and also no 
less because of its intimate connection with the Tem- 
plars some six centuries since. It was formerly a 
lodge of Knights Templars, which was in those days 
of chivalry, a religious and military order founded at 
Jerusalem, in the twelfth century, under Baldwin, King 
of Jerusalem, to protect the Holy Sepulchre, and pil- 



THE TEMPLE CHURCH. 437 

grims resorting thither, and called " Templars," from 
their original designation, as "poor soldiers of the 
Temple of Solomon." 

The Order in England dissolved in 1313, and the 
Temple then became crown property. Afterwards, 
the Temple came into possession of the Knights of St. 
John, who, in 1346, leased it to the students of com- 
mon law. From that time to the present, the build- 
ing, or rather group of buildings, which extends to 
the Thames, has continued to be a school of law. 

The Temple Church is also an object of interest to 
all Knights Templars, as it dates back to 1188. It is 
divided into sections, known as the Eound Church and 
the Choir which was added in 1240. The Eound 
Church is the portion, however, of greatest interest to 
the Masonic fraternity, as it contains no less than nine 
monuments of Templars of the twelfth and thirteenth 
centuries, consisting of recumbent figures of dark 
marble in full Templar armor. Two of these Tem- 
plars are especially famous, one, the Earl of Pembroke, 
noted as the brother-in-law of King John, from whom 
the bold barons wrested the grand charter of England's 
liberties at Runnymede, and the other, Baron Robert 
de Ross, who took a prominent part among the eigh- 
teen barons in obtaining the Magna Charta, and whose 
statues are in the House of Lords, in recognition of 
their inestimable services to their country. 

Oliver Goldsmith, who wrote the touching and 
pathetic " Vicar of Wakefield," lies buried in the 



438 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

churchyard, not far distant, from these "valiant and 
magnanimous " Knights Templars. 

At this point, I can not refrain from making another 
copious quotation from the elegant address of Sir and 
Bro. S. W. Young, to whom I am already so much 
beholden for the valuable materials which I have in- 
corporated, with others, in the sketch of " York 
and its relations to Freemasonry," in the second 
chapter of this work, and I feel sure that I will be 
readily pardoned by my readers when they peruse Sir 
Young's truly eloquent and learned remarks, in con- 
nection with the Temple Church, which we have been 
feebly attempting to describe, though never so imper- 
fectly, I am afraid. 

"When I was a resident of the world's great me- 
tropolis, one of my favorite haunts was the Temple 
Garden, a quaint sweet nook, lying on the borders of, 
and yet seemingly remote from, the rushing, roar- 
ing and throbbing life, that surged through the great 
arterial highway close by. There I loved to sit, 
looking out on the bosom of Father Thames, soothed 
into meditation by the splash of the fountain, the scent 
of the flowers, the prattle and laughter of playing 
children, and the shy endearments of trysting lovers ; 
and the scene called up countless memories of the his- 
tory of our Order — for here was their earliest and 
greatest European home. 

" There is the Round Church, to consecrate which 
the patriarch of Jerusalem came across the sea, during 
a truce with Saladin in 1184. 



THE ROUND CHURCH. 439 

*' Within lie cross-legged (as all good Sir Knights 
should lie), the effigies of the old Knights who died in 
fighting against the infidels on those blessed acres 
erst trodden by the humble feet of the Son of Man. 

The church is still called the Church of the Temple; 
its rector is still called the Master of the Temple, and 
where the Prelate of the Order once said mass, the 
white-robed Master still prays the old prayers, and 
preaches to, perhaps, the most learned and critical con- 
gregation in the world, and the choristers sing their 
anthems and hymns, which the old Knights would have 
delighted to listen to, though they would, no doubt, 
have been sorely puzzled by the learned expressions 
and expositions of the preacher, and would have 
looked contemptuously enough on the great lawyers 
who occupy their stalls, and who in their turn, gaze, 
with careless eyes, on the recumbent forms of those 
whose life-work, so passionately wrought out, one of 
these same lawyers has sneered at, as the extremity of 
human folly. 

'* I have sat in that old church of theirs, and heard 
the choir boys sing : — 

" Soldiers of Christ, arise 
And put your armor on, 
Strong in tlie strength that God supplies 
Through His Eternal Sons." 

" And it seemed like an invocation to the stalwart 
dead to rise and carry on their work, needed to-day as 
much as eight hundred years ago. And I thanked God 



440 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

that Knight Templarism still lives, spiritualized indeed, 
in the alchemy of Freemasonry, but in spirit and pur- 
poses, yet unchanged. 

***** ***** 

*' And I went out, and sitting in the quiet garden, 
recalled without effort the glorious past. 

" Me thought, I felt my heart burn within me, as the 
news came home that Jerusalem had been captured by 
the Caliph Omar, and accompanied in spirit the pious 
pilgrims, who, during the succeeding centuries, knelt 
at the sepulchre of the Lord. 

" And then, when the cruel Turks got possession of 
the city and heavily oppressed the Christians, I felt 
the pathos of the patriarch's appeal to western Chris- 
tendom, and listened to the homely eloquence of Peter, 
the Hermit, as he told of insulting infidels, demolished 
churches, and murdered pilgrims ; and in the open 
space before the church, at Clermont, my heart was 
stirred by the impassioned rhetoric of Pope Urban, 
and with all my soul, I joined the great cry which went 
up from the heart of the listening crowd, Deus le 
volt — God willeth it. 

"Again, I followed Godfrey, and Raymond, and Ad- 
hemar, and Bohemond, in the first Crusade, and wit- 
nessed the siege and capture of Nicea, the misery 
and final triumph of Antioch, the capture of Jerusa- 
lem, and the bloody slaughter of the Moslems. 

"With what joy we hailed the noble Godfrey de 
Bouillon, Christian King of Jerusalem, and heard him, 
with noble humility, declare that he would only be 



REMINISCENCES. 441 

called the Baron and Defender of the Sepulchre 
of Christ, and that he would never wear the diadem 
of royalty in that citVs where the Savior of man- 
kind had worn, with bleeding brow, the crown of 
thorns. 

" Jerusalem once more a Christian city, the crowds 
of pilgrims from Europe, swarmed again to the hal- 
lowed shrine. But the warlike infidels, who had all 
but conquered France, and even now, were lords of 
Spain, were little likely to leave, without a struggle, 
in Christian hands spots almost equally sacred in their 
own eyes. 

"Each Easter tide, the pilgrim caravan went down 
from Jerusalem to Jericho, to bathe in the Jordan, and 
they, too, like the man in the parable, very often fell 
among thieves. That bloody road had, indeed, a bad 
name for now a thousand years, and it was to succor 
and defend the harassed pilgrims that Hugo de Pay- 
ane and his eight valiant companions founded the Order 
of Knights Templars, which we perpetuate to-day. 

*' Time would fail us, and it needs not to recount to 
their successors, their noble history, their pure lives, 
and their exceeding valor. The fame of the Templars 
and Hospitalers will never die. 

" On many a bloody field they fought the infidel, and 
for long years, they alone upheld the failing banner 
of the Cross. 

" Ah ! How they charged by the side of the lion- 
hearted Richard, worthy comrade and fearless Knight, 
how undauntedly they persevered, until on that fatal 



442 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

day, July 5, 1187, on the tableland of Hatten, sur- 
rounded by the countless hordes of Saladin, their star 
went down in blood, after days of derring-do unique in 
the history of battles. 

"Need I tell their subsequent fortunes, their cruel 
sufferings, their forcible suppression? Need I trace 
the subsequent history of their brother Order of St. 
John, who for centuries kept up the war in the East, 
and ruled over Cyprus, Rhodes, and Malta, and whose 
historical succession bas never been broken ? 

" The glorious story of the Crusades is a part of the 
heritage of the world. Call the Crusades the acme of 
folly, if you will, but to them, remember, that we owe 
the whole modern history of Europe and America. 
But for them the crescent, not the cross, might have 
surmounted the spires of Notre Dame and Westmin- 
ster I But for them America might still have been a 
forest ; and these, our beloved and glorious United 
States, still the dark and bloody fighting-ground of 
nomad Indians. 

*' Sir Knights, it is our duty so to live, and work and 
combat as to make the land in which we live a " Holy 
Land ; " and, as in Palestine, there was not only Jeru- 
salem but Jericho, and a dark and dangerous road 
between the two, even so we shall find it here. Many 
souls are ever wending their way through the defiles 
on their pilgrimage to Jordan, and in the ravines lurk 
the thieves ready to pounce upon them and rob them, 
and leave them naked and half-dead ! Yea, and we 



TEMPLAR PRINCIPLES. 443 

are bound by our vows, to seek out and to succor 
them. 

" Methinks the great Master, Christ, first suggested 
our Order, and the Good Samaritan was the first Sir 
Knight. Who are the Templar's neighbors? He 
seeks no further than the first poor wretch who needs 
his help. 

"Valiant and magnanimous, are you called, Sir 
Knights; valiant to face every foe who assails you 
from without ; valiant to suppress every evil sugges- 
tion which rises within you ! 

** Aye, and magnanimous — great souled — lifted far 
above petty spite, and envy or jealousy — too full of 
your grand life-purpose to have time to quarrel or to 
hate. 

•'Magnanimous — great of heart ! Yea, so working, 
that all you can do for Christ seemeth so poor and 
little, that you will blush to hear the Grand Master's 
praise in the day of the great and final review of His 
Knights, and with the humility and modesty of a true 
chivalry, will ask Him : Lord, where, and when, and 
how ? and He will say * Inasmuch as ye have done it 
unto the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it 
unto me.' 

" Sir Knights and brethren, I need not apologize to a 
religious Order of chivalry /br this serious fotie." 

" Our glory is not in pomp and trappings and parade, 
but in duty well done. 

*' Surely it is a lesson to the community at large, to 
see everywhere displayed the Holy Cross, with the 



444 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

motto of our Order : * In hoc sic/no vinces^' — ' In 
this sign thou shalt conquer.' 

* * * * * * * ** * 

While we are upon this topic, it may possibly be of 
interest to the Order of Knights Templars, to know 
that the Waldenses, when persecuted for His sake, 
seven hundred years ago, used as their secret symbol, 
when meeting at the peril of their lives to worship 
God in their secret retreats, the sign of the Maltese 
Cross and their pass-words were "In His Name," 
and *' For the Love of Christ." 

Of course, there are hundreds of other places of 
interest which might be mentioned, but we do not pro- 
pose to weary ourselves and our readers with such an 
onerous task, in comparison with which the fabled 
twelve labors of Hercules would be almost as nothing, 
so we shall, of necessity, conclude our cursory remarks 
concerning this great city in a few brief sentences. 

However, before leaving London, I should like to 
say a few words about the great London dailies, and 
the impression they made on me in comparison with 
the great leading journals of America. 

To quote the words of a recent writer on this subject, 
" if there is one thing aggravating to the American 
tourist on his first trip to England, it is the supreme 
indifference of the English press to American affairs," 
and after a thorough reading and examination of the 
English papers, extending through quite a length of 
time, I am inclined to agree most fully in the state- 
ment. 



LONDON NEWSPAPERS. 445 

Having been accustomed for many years to the un- 
limited enterprise and energy of the press of my own 
country, and having been, truth to tell, engaged for 
some time in my earlier life, in the dissemination of 
leading Western dailies, among the reading classes of a 
country where everybody reads, from the blacksmith at 
the anvil to the President of our greatest universities — 
where they read in the street, in the street car, in the 
railway train, in fact, every where — I was surprised 
to see what trouble I had in getting a paper, even the 
" Thunderer," in the great metropolis; and although 
I was stopping in London at a magnificent hotel, with 
a rooming capacity of, perhaps, a thousand guests, I ' 
could not get a copy of the Times even, unless I had 
ordered it in advance. 

Our leading journals, as every body knows, with a 
prodigality of expenditure unknown to any class of 
journalists but the wide awake and go-ahead fellows, 
who " drive the quill " in our newspaper offices, stop at 
neither pains or expense, when an " item " worth having 
is to be had ; and our newspaper bills for dispatches from 
the Associated Press, for cablegrams, etc., would drive 
the average London editor stark, staring mad to say, 
nothmg about the amounts paid for special corre- 
spondence, etc. 

However, the vaunted London Times, which for 
fifty years past has been held up for the admiration 
of newspaper men of America, especially, is no more 
to be compared with one of our great metropolitan 
dailies than the Boston News-Letter, the first paper 



446 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

published in America, could vie with a late issue of 
the great New York Herald ^ or the New York 8un, 
or Tribune. 

Items concerning the Eoyal Family and the Nobility 
take up more space in the London papers than their 
dispatches, either by cable or otherwise, and one day, 
when I was looking over the cablegrams from America, 
which did not really take up more space of the paper 
than a finger length, about the only thing I noticed 
was about two lines regarding the death of Captain 
Webb, by drowning, at the Whirlpool Kapids, of Nia- 
gara, and had he not been an Englishman, I thought it 
more than likely that it would not have been cabled 
at all. 

The personal (with the exception noted above), and 
local features, which are such a prominent part of 
American journalism, are almost utterly unknown to 
English journalism, as a London newspaper, of any 
prominence, seldom takes notice of any local events, 
unless in some way it is related to the general interests 
of the community, or to the larger interests of the 
nation, or the world at large. And it is an extremely 
rare occurrence for a London, or even a provincial, 
journal to refer to individuals, no matter what their 
social prominence, unless they are in somewise in pub- 
lic life. The personal, domestic, and business affairs 
of the individual are only in exceptional cases, tra- 
versed or discussed in the English press in all their un- 
fortunate or scandalous details, as is, unfortunately, too 
often the case in our American journals ( even in those of 



NEWSPAPER CIECULATION. 447 

prominence and standing), which is, I think, a great im- 
provement on our style of journalism. Even the alleged 
*' society journals" of England make reference to 
individuals only when they are either distinguished 
or notorious, which is, I think, decidedly preferable 
to our " mixed " style of journalism, which chronicles 
alike the doings, the sayings, and movements of the high 
and mighty, as well as of the "tagrag and bobtail," 
and not alone, as in England, of the ''distinguished 
and notorious." 

As for the newsboy, who is so indigenous to the soil 
of America, where he seems to flourish "like the 
green bay tree," — for him there is not much territory, 
apparently, even in the world's greatest metropolis ; 
and should, by any unlucky chance, one of our Ameri- 
can gamins of this ilk suddenly find himself set down 
high and dry in London, methinks he would soon find 
himself like Othello, — his " occupation gone." 

This article, regarding the London journals might be 
extended to a much greater length, but such is not our 
province nor our intention, and we propose to bring 
these rambling suggestions to a close by citing some 
figures which show the circulation of the London papers 
to be far inferior to those of our leading American dailies ; 
when we take into consideration the fact that New 
York City, for example, has only one-fOurth of the 
population of the city of London, and yet the New 
York Tribune has recently come to the front with a 
sworn statement which shows that, during the week of 
the late Presidential election, their circulation reached 



448 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

the enormous, and hitherto wholly " unprecedented 
number of 1,023,300 copies, or a daily average, for 
seven days, of 146,185;" the day after the election 
reaching the astounding number of 188,600 copies ; 
and on Saturday of the same week, the number of 
172,000, while their weekly circulation reached 
145,910 copies, and the semi-weekly 38,300, making 
the total number of Tribunes printed and sold in one 
week, 1,207,510, and they claim that ninety-four tons 
of paper was actually used in this mammoth week's 
work. 

Now, when you take these figures, and compare 
them with what I shall now give, you will see very 
conclusively that in comparison with us English jour- 
nalism must take a back seat, and that Charles • 
Dickens' "Jefferson Brick," the "American war 
correspondent," while he may not have the " culchah," 
of " Bull-Kun Russell," Archibald Forbes or George 
Augustus Sala, yet he is a " hustler" all the same. 

To begin with, the far-famed "Thunderer" (the 
Tmes), has only a circulation of 100,000 copies, which 
is far outstripped by the Telegraph, with 250,000 cir- 
culation, which is more after the style of a newsy 
American daily, and yet, not the same by a consider- 
able ; then the morning and evening Standard together, 
with 242,000; the Daily JVews, 160.000; the Chronicle, 
120,000, and the Advertiser 25,000. 

Of the popular weeklies, the best known and the 
most largely circulated, some of them the world over, 
are the Illustrated London News, with a circulation of 



OTHER SCENES. 449 

100,000 copies; the Graphic, 100,000; the Sporting 
and Dramatic News, 20,000 ; Punch, 25,000 (the 
most of whose political jokes, however, require a dia- 
gram for the ordinary American to get them through 
his cranium); the Police News, 300,000; Funny 
Folks, 80,000; Judy, 50,000; Fun, 10,000; the 
Saturday Review, 20,000, and The World, 200,000, 
while Lloyd's Weekly, which has probably a larger 
circulation than any other paper in the world, sells, 
week in week out, an average of 612,902 copies. 

Now, as my time is limited, and my MS. has already 
gone at least a hundred pages beyond what I had 
thought, in my most sanguine moments I should be 
able to jot down, I shall, accordingly, say nothing 
of the Albert Memorial which, taken as a whole, is, 
perhaps, the finest monumental structure in the United 
Kingdom ; nothing of the National Fisheries Exposi- 
tion, which contained interesting and valuable exhibits 
from all parts of the world ; nothing of the South 
Kensington Museum, which is far more interesting to 
the ordinary observer than the mammoth British 
Museum ; nothing of Lord Nelson's monument in 
Trafalgar Square, which the British nation erected in 
their gratitude to one whom they deemed their tem- 
poral savior, because at Trafalgar he destroyed the 
navy which was to cover the crossing of the magnifi- 
cent army which Napoleon had gathered at Boulogne 
for the invasion of England, which was only twenty- 
four miles away, across the narrow channel, and which, 
in his contempt for the whole British nation, he had 

29 



450 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

proudly termed the "Army of England;" the 
National Gallery, the Zoological Gardens, Sir John 
Soane's Museum, where I saw a sarcophagus, costing 
$10,000, and Hogarth's famous pictures, representing, 
with what sad fidelity, alas, " TheEake's Progress " — 
all these things of interest, I say, and more, can hardly 
be alluded to, much less described. 

Of course, it is needless to say that I left the great 
city and turned my footsteps towards the Scottish bor- 
der with much regret ; but I tried to console myself 
with the thought that I had, at any rate, gotten a tol- 
erable conception of its immensity, and its manifold 
attractions, and that I might some day again take up 
the thread of this truly " Cretan Labyrinth," and 
view a few more of the many wonderful sights which 
are to be found here by a stay of a month or two, but 
which I could not, at that time, find opportunity to 
hunt up. 

On an extremely beautiful morning in August-— 
that is, I mean a beautiful morning for London — I 
took my seat in the Ediuboro express, in which I spent 
from ten to eleven hours before reaching Edinboro, at 
nine in the evening, as the distance is about 400 miles, 
and it takes the fastest English-and-Scotch express 
trains almost an entire day or night to make the trip. 

When I arrived at my journey's end I was so tired 
and hungry that I only glanced at the lights which 
beamed down upon the city below, from the grand old 
Castle Rock of Edinboro, which is almost directly 
under the castle's guns, and upon my hotel on Prince's 



EDINBOKO. 451 

Street, which is the finest street in Edinboro, as well as 
one of the most beautiful in Europe, before I refreshed 
the inner man, and then immediately gave mj weary 
body to the arms of Morpheus, reserving the sights 
" within a mile of Edinboro town," for the next day, 
when we will proceed to take them up in their proper 
order. 

Before I bade my London friend good-by, prepara- 
tory to leaving for the North, he said to me that I 
should find Edinboro much more beautifully and pict- 
uresquely situated than any city of Europe I had visited, 
or, for that matter, than any city of Europe which he 
himself had seen ; and when, after repeated strolls, and 
views from various commanding points, I had begun to 
grasp, as it were, a few of its manifold beauties and 
attractions, I could most readily agree with him. 

The immortal " Wizard of the North " (of course, it 
goes without saying, that I mean that wonderful genius. 
Sir Walter Scott), in his novel, " The Heart of Mid- 
lothian," so well and so beautifully describes the view 
from Salisbury Crags, which overlook the new part of the 
city, from a height of some 400 feet, that I am sure I 
shall not offend or tire the reader by quoting him. 

I will say, however, that the view from Arthur's 
Seat, which is 802 feet above the level of the sea, 
far transcends the view which is obtained from Salis- 
bury Crags, which are only about half the height of 
the former. 

The commanding form of Arthur's Seat is, by far, 
the noblest and most imposing object in any, even the 



452 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

most cursory, views of the city of Edinboro and its 
surroundings. It is, at the same time, the most attrac- 
tive spot of all the pleasure grounds of Edinboro. 

It is said that nowhere in the wide world (and so, 
indeed, it seemed to me at the time) is there a city of 
anything like its size, from which, in the short space of 
a quarter of an hour, you may pass from the abodes of 
wealth, and the active turmoil of agreatand busy city, 
almost at a step, upon a scene reminding the spectator 
of the times of the fathers in Israel, who, in wild, 
secluded pastures, tended their cattle upon a thousand 
hills. 

This glorious observatory is called after the British 
Prince Arthur, who is said to have gained a victory 
over the Saxons in this neighborhood in the ninth cen- 
tury, the scene of which they claim to show you from 
this spot. 

And now for Sir Walter's fascinating description of 
the view from Salisbury Crags. Says he: — 

** Were I to choose a spot from which the rising or 
the setting sun could be seen to the greatest possible ad- 
vantage, it would be that wild path, winding around 
the foot of the high belt of semi-circular rocks, called 
Salit-bury Crags, and marking the verge of the steep 
descent which slopes down into the glen on the south- 
eastern side of the city of Edinboro. The prospect, in 
its general outline, commands a close-built, high-piled 
city, stretching itself out beneath in'a form, which to a 
romantic imagination, may be supposed to represent 
that of a dragon's, now, a noble arm of the sea, with its 



SALISBURY CRAGS. 453 

rocks, isles, distant shores, and boundary of mountains ; 
and now a fair and fertile champaign country, varied 
with hill, dale and rock, and skirted by the picturesque 
ridge of the Pentland Mountains . But as the path gently 
circles around the base of the cliffs, the prospect, 
composed as it is of these enchanting and sublime ob- 
jects, changes at every step, and presents them blended 
with, or divided from each other, in every possible 
variety which can gratify the eye and the imagination. 
When a piece of scenery so beautiful, yet so varied, — 
so exciting by its intricacy, and yet so sublime, — is 
lighted up by the tints of morning or of evening, and 
displays all that variety of shadowy depth exchanged 
with partial brilliancy, which gives character even to 
the tamest of landscapes, the effect approaches near to 
enchantment. 

"This path used to be my favorite evening and 
morning resort, when engaged with a favorite author 
or a new study, and this fascinating path was to me the 
scene of much delicious musing, when life was young 
and promised to be happy." 

The same scene, substantially, presents itself to the 
spectator to-day, as it was sixty years ago, and to me, 
who saw it by those ''evening tints," to which the 
famous author alludes above, the view was vastly en- 
hanced by a melancholy interest to which he does not 
refer, but which, with a certain feeling of melancholy, 
I shall take the liberty of mentioning, and this inter- 
est was caused by the prospect of the venerable Holy- 
rood Palace, which nestles at the foot of these rugged 



454 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Crags, and which has been made forever famous by its 
beautiful, but alas ! unhappy occupant, Mary, Queen 
of Scots. 

Here is where the beautiful young widow of the 
Dauphin of France first rested her weary limbs and 
tried to dispel the gloom from her clouded young 
life upon her return to her native land from the 
land of her adoption ; here was the scene of her mar- 
riage with the ill-fated Lord Darnley ; here her Italian 
secretary and alleged lover, Riccio, (though historians 
after a dispassionate review of the evidence in the case 
pro and cow, are inclined to believe her innocent of 
that infamous charge, which, with all the confident 
assurance of injured innocence, she always indignantly 
repelled) was murdered in her private banquet room, 
and, after being stabbed with fifty-six wounds, 
and being dragged through the Eoyal apartments, 
breathed his last ; here, to the disgust and grief of her 
friends, and amid the derision and contempt of her 
enemies, she married Bothwell, and here, too, the 
prisoner of those who should have been her loyal sub- 
jects and protectors, she passed the, last night before 
she became a prisoner in the Castle of Lochleven. 

Within these historic walls, at many a regal enter- 
tainment, she enchanted all who beheld her by the un- 
paralleled beauty of her person (but when, alas ! has 
ever beauty been to woman aught but a deadly curse?) 
by the grace of her bearing and manners, and, better 
still, by the solid attractions of a polished and culti- 
v^ated mind. 



«' MODERN ATHENS." 455 

Here, too, she had to contend with the fiery and un- 
compromising John Knox, and other leaders of less 
renown connected with the Scottish Keformation, and 
who, in the presence of this beautiful Queen, seemed 
to forget that she, and not they, was the Sovereign, 
and dared (yet in the name of God, we should remem- 
ber), in her own sacred apartments to take to task 
their own Sovereign and her maids of honor, for their 
religion. 

A describer of Holyrood describes Mary Stuart as 
that *' lovely, suffering, intensely-interesting Queen," 
whose personal charms, and tragical death at the 
hands of her merciless kinswoman, the masculine 
Elizabeth, upon a wholly unproven charge of conspir- 
acy against her life and crown, (but who, herself being 
very far from handsome, naturally hated Queen Mary 
for her marvelous beauty and manifold attractions) 
have elicited the most eloquent periods from our 
greatest historians, and whose beautiful face has given 
inspiration to so many of the world's 'grandest poets, 
among them Schiller in Germany, and Alfieri in 
Italy. 

This beautiful city is, undoubtedly, the only one in 
the world (except the famous original), which has a 
well-defined right to be termed the " modern Athens," 
and it is said that Mr. Stewart, the author of the 
"Antiquities of Athens," was the first to depict the 
resemblance of Edinboro' to Athens. 

Mr. H. W. Williams, however, so widely known in 



456 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

literary and scholastic circles, as " Grecian Williams," 
traced the likeness minutely in every feature of the 
respective landscapes, the only defect he observed 
being that the National Monument ought to have been 
on the Castle Eock, that being the elevation correspond- 
ing to the Acropolis at Athens, on which the Parthenon 
stands. 

We hav^ already seen what Sir Walter Scott thought 
of its natural features, and it is through these, as well 
as the magnificence of its modern Grecian buildings, 
that it proudly maintains the claim of being among the 
most beautiful, if not the most beautiful, of all Euro- 
pean capitals. 

Of course, the first place of historic interest, because 
the most conspicuous, (and heuce, naturally, the first 
thing that the tourist usually turns his attention to) 
which meets his inquiring gaze, is the grand old Castle 
Rock of Edinboro' , which historians tell us, was occu- 
pied by the aboriginal tribes long before the conquest 
of Brittany by the Romans under Julius Caesar. 

Its situation must have rendered it impregnable, 
previous to the invention of artillery, and pointed it 
out as an advantageous stronghold, and hence there is 
no reason to doubt the antiquity claimed for this im- 
posing old fortress ; but now it is of little importance, 
although covering eleven acres, as an enemy or even the 
citizens of Edinboro' in a state of insurrection, could 
easily seize Arthur's seat, and soon bring to terms this 
old relic of feudal times. 



EDINBORO' CASTLE. 457 

Burns beautifully describes the Castle Rock in the 
following glorious lines : — 

" There, watching high the least alarms, 
Thy rough, rude fortress gleams afar, 
Like some bold vet'ran, gray in arms, 
And marked with many a seamy scar; 
The pondrous wall and massy bar. 
Grim-rising o'er the rugged rock. 
Have oft withstood ass'ailing war, 
And oft repelled the invader's shock." 

The castle is said once to have had seven gates, but 
at the present time you enter by one only, and the 
moat, which once guarded the south side of the castle, 
which is alone accessible, has been dry for many 
years. 

There are persons in waiting, who for a small gratu- 
ity, show you through such parts of the castle as are 
usually shown to visitors, and give you a historical 
sketch, more or less graphic and reliable (generally 
less), of the sights and curiosities contained there. 

In order, however, to better grasp the situation, you 
must bear in mind that Edinboro' is divided into two 
portions, called the "old" and *'new" town, the 
Castle Rock, of course, belonging to the old town nat- 
urally, these being separated by a deep ravine extend- 
ing for quite a distance, which is now mainly a grand 
park and flower-garden, and through which several 
railways pass, on one of which, the Caledonian 
Railway, I afterwards departed for the Scotch lakes, 
passing the very base of the Castle Rock. 



458 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Of course, the old town must needs be the historic 
portion of Edinboro', and to this we propose, accord- 
ingly, to give our attention in the main, although we 
shall mention, we trust, some things of interest con- 
nected with the new town. 



CHAPTER XV. 



EDINBORO' CONTINUED. 

'DINBOEO' Castle, perched on the summit of the 
rock at the west end of the central ridge of the 
city, is 443 feet above the level of the sea, and, of 
course, forms the most striking feature in all views of 
the metropolis. 

The Rock, it is supposed, was a stronghold from the 
time of the Picts, and long before the records of 
Scottish history. 

The present buildings, however, date only from 
about the fifteenth century (with the exception of St. 
Margaret's Chapel, which is 800 years old), and are 
about 700 yards in circumference. The whole of the 
circular front to the east was destroyed by Earl Mor- 
ton's siege, in the time of Queen Mary, and rebuilt by 
him after Mary's defender — Kirkaldy of Grange — 
had yielded. 



ANCIENT LANDMARKS. 459 

After passing the drawbridge and guard house, we 
pass beneath the portcullis gate, over which is the old 
State Prison where the Marquis of Argyle, Lord Bal- 
carras, and many other illustrious prisoners have been 
confined, and whence many of them were led forth to 
an ignominious death. 

A little further up to the right, is the Argyle Bat- 
tery, and at the foot of the roa'dway in front, is the 
Armory, which has a capacity of 30,000 stands of 
arms. Passing up the steep causeway, we see on the 
right, the Governor's house, and further up on the 
same side are the new barracks, a lofty and imposing 
pile of buildings. 

Turning to the left, and passing through an old 
arched gateway, the citadel is now reached, from which 
we obtain various views, which fill with enthusiasm and 
delight, the most fastidious and hypercritical of be- 
holders. From the citadel, turning in a southeast 
direction, we pass along the half -moon battery, con- 
structed by the Regent Morton, in 1574, and here the 
Time Gun is fired daily at 1 p. m., by electricity from 
the observatory on the Caton Hill, where a ball is 
dropped at the same time. 

Turning to the right, we pass into the square, the 
south and east sides of which constituted for centuries 
the Royal Palace and stronghold of the kings and 
queens of Scotland. The royal apartments were on 
the east side, where a long line of sovereigns were 
born, lived and died, and here we enter Queen Mary's 
room. A few paces south from the crown-room, on 



460 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

the ground floor, is the room in which, on June 1-9, 
1566, Queen Mary gave birth to a son, who, after- 
wards, became King James VI. of Scotland, and I. of 
England. A stone tablet over the arch of the old 
doorway, with the initials H. and M. inwrought for 
Henry (Lord Darnley) and Mary, and the date 1566, 
commemorates this event. The room itself, which is 
surprisingly small, its'greatest length being little more 
than eight feet, like the banquet-room in Holywood 
Palace, where Eiccio was assassinated, is singularly 
irregular in form, but has undergone very little change 
from that day to this. 

Some of the original wainscot paneling having been 
injured or removed, it has been replaced in a rather 
inelegant fashion. The original ceiling, however, is 
still preserved, wrought in ornamental wooden panels, 
with the initials I. R. and M. R., surmounted with the 
royal crown, in alternate compartments. On the wall 
are the royal arms, and beneath them a long verse, 
which with its antique and curious lettering, I could not 
conveniently decipher, so I gave up the attempt. 
Above the fireplace, and on the wall opposite is the 
date of the birth of Mary's son, " 19 Jvnii, 1566." 

In the room still stands an old oak chair, which was 
there when King James was born. The interested visi- 
tor will also notice a block of thorn tree, which was 
planted by the fair hands of Queen Mary herself at 
Lochleven Castle, while there a prisoner, and which 
was cut down in 1849, and presented by Sir G. Mont- 
gomery. 



GRASS MARKET. 461 

Looking from the window of this historic chamber, 
an amazingly picturesque sight meets the eye. Some 
hundreds of feet below is the Grass Market, a name 
which is indelibly imprinted in the memory of all true 
Scotsmen, by the scenes it witnessed in the times of 
the Covenanters, and of the "Bloody Kirke" (whom 
afterwards, in 1686, the New England colonies greatly 
dreaded would be sent out to them as their Governor 
by King James II., but much to their relief the less 
redoubtable Sir Edmund Andros came), and Claver- 
house, where so many of the " Scots worthies " suf- 
fered death at the hands of their despotic and prelatic 
persecutors. 

By the way, a pretty good repartee was gotten off in 
response to Sir Edmund, when he visited Hartford, by 
the witty Dr. Hooker, to whom he remarked one 
morning: *' Well, Doctor, I suppose all the good peo- 
ple of Hartford are fasting and praying on my 
account." The worthy Doctor, who at once saw his 
opportunity, made answer, with a roguish twinkle of 
his eye: "Yes, of course, for you know that we 
read this kind goeth not out but by fasting and 
prayer." 

The youthful James Eenwick was the last of the 
martyrs who sealed their faith with their blood in the 
Grass Market. The place of execution was at the east 
end of the square, opposite No. 100. The gibbet was 
an exceedingly familiar object here between the years 
1680 and 1788, and the place where it stood so long, is 



462 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

yet marked by a circle enclosing a cross on the high- 
way. 

Nearly opposite, on the same side, stood, till de- 
molished in the " city improvements " of 1874, the 
tenement in front of which Captain Porteous was 
hanged to a dyer's pole, which is fully described in 
the " Heart of Midlothian." 

One or two of the old tenements on the opposite 
side of the street belonged to those '* Templar Lands," 
once so numerous at the foot of the Bow and Grass 
Market. It was only in 1746 that the independent 
jurisdiction of the Knights Templars was conclusively 
abolished. 

Still further beyond, in the distance, tower the grand 
old pinnacles of Heriot's Hospital and Arthur's Seat, 
and rising far in the background to the right are the 
ruined towers of royal Craigmillar Castle — once the 
residence of the hapless Mary. 

It has been asserted by some authorities that the 
young Prince, when but a few days old, was, for the 
purpose of being baptised in the Eoman Catholic faith, 
let down by stealth, at night, in a basket from the 
window of Queen Mary's room, which has but one, I 
believe, and carried to Stirling Castle. There can re- 
main no doubt that Mary's room is one of the oldest 
and best preserved parts of the ancient palace of the 
kings and queens of Scotland. 

A curious conversation, reported in Lord Herries' 
" Memoirs," which took place between Queen Mary 



CRAIGMILLAR CASTLE. 463 

and Lord Darnley on the day of the birth of the young 
Prince, renders this quaint little chamber altogether a 
place of interest : — 

"The young prince," says Herries, "was ushered 
into the world between nine and ten in the morning. 
Darnley came at two in the afternoon to see his royal 
spouse and his child. 

*' * My lord,' said Mary, " God has given us a 
son,' and partially uncovering the infant's face, she 
added a protest that it was his, and no other man's 
son. 

*' Then turning to an English gentleman present, she 
said : * This is the son who, I hope, shall first unite the 
two kingdoms of Scotland and England.' 

** Sir William Stanley then inquired, ' Why, madam, 
shall he succeed before your majesty and his father? ' 

" 'Alas ! ' answered Mary, ' his father has broken 
to me,' alluding to his having joined the murderous 
conspiracy against Riccio (or Rizzio). 

"'Sweet madam,' said Darnley, ' is this the 
promise that you made : that you would forget and 
forgive all? ' 

" ' I have forgiven all,' said the Queen, ' but will 
never forget. What if Hawdonside's (one of the con- 
spirators) pistol had shot? (She had felt the cold 
steel on her bosom). What would have become of 
him (meaning her unborn son) and me both?' 

" ' Madam,' said Darnley, *these things are past.' 

" ' Then,' said the Queen, ' let them go,' and thus 
ended this extraordinary conversation." 



464 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

In the large outer room or ante-chamber adjoining 
Queen Mary's room are several portraits of interest to 
which we will make barely a passing allusion : — 

The most notable is one of Queen Mary herself when 
Dauphiness of France, painted by Sir John Watson 
Gordon, from the original by Furino, the Italian art- 
ist, and presented by him for exhibition — the original 
beino; now in Dunrobin Castle. 

This superb portrait, which yet bears the tra.ce of Sir 
John's masterly style, is said to be the only reliable 
likeness of Marie Stuart extant. 

As she married Francis, the Dauphin, when she was 
only about sixteen years of age, the likeness may be 
safely ascribed to a short period after that time. 

Another painting of interest is one by the artist. 
Sheriff, done when he was a mere youth, which repre- 
sents the escape of Queen Mary from her imprison- 
ment in Lochleven Castle, under Lady Douglas, which 
she managed very adroitly by bringing to bear her 
personal charms and seductive wiles upon George 
Douglas, her keeper's brother, a youth of eighteen 
years — in whom she found a champion and rescuer — 
who was aided by William, or the " little Douglas." 

After supper, on May 2d, 1568, the keys of the 
castle were stolen from the elder Douglas, the Queen 
and her maid put into a boat, the castle gate relocked, 
the keys flung into the lake, and Mary was free once 
more. 

It was not long, however, befor.e the adherents who 
had rallied around her standard were defeated; and 



THE CROWN ROOM. 465 

then, conscious of the innocence of her intentions to- 
wards the Queen of England, she, unfortunately, fled to 
Elizabeth for protection, who gave her just such pro- 
tection as the wolf gives the lamb, none other. 

The large building on the left, as we issue from 
Queen Mary's room, was formerly the great hall of 
the palace. It is a magnificent apartment, eighty feet 
in length, by thirty-three in width, and twenty-seven 
feet to the ceiling, which is of open timber, each joint 
springing from a corbel stone. 

This room was the ancient Parliament House of the 
kingdom of Scotland, and was, during those times, used 
frequently for banquets of state, one of the last which 
was given in this hall having been given in honor of 
the visit of Charles I. to Scotland, in 1633. 

A few paces to the right, as we make our exit beneath 
the old clock tower, we next reach the room where the 
royal regalia of Scotland are preserved, and which is 
known as the Crown Room. 

These insignia of the ancient monarchs of Scotland, 
consisting of a crown, a scepter, a sword of state and 
a silver rod of office (supposed, commonly, to be that 
of the Lord Treasurer), were long believed to be lost ; 
but, after lying in an old oak chest, from the date of 
the union of England and Scotland, and the abolition 
of the Scottish Parliament, as a natural consequence 
thereof, in the early part of the eighteenth century, 
they were, chiefly through the instrumentality of Sir 
Walter Scott, restored to the light in 1818, after hav- 

30 



466 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

ing been hidden away from the eye of man for more 
than 110 years. 

The Prince Kegent (afterwards Geo. lY. ) granted a 
commission to allow the Crown Room to be searched, 
and, to the great joy of the whole Scottish nation, 
they were found intact in the very state in which they 
had been placed in the old oaken chest in 1701, the 
chest having been forced open by blacksmith's tools, 
as the keys had been lost for more than a century 

Scotsmen are justly proud of these symbols of their 
unconquered independence, which are hoary with an- 
tiquity, and are the relics of a long line of monarchs, 
beginning with King Robert the Bruce, the hero of 
Bannockburn. A part of the crown, at least, has been 
worn by Robert Bruce, and, besides other sovereigns, 
it has encircled the brow of the beautiful and unhappy 
Queen Mary herself; her son, James VI., and her 
grandson, Charles I. The sword was a gift from Pope 
Julius II. to James IV. The form of the crown is 
remarkably elegant, and the lower portion consists of 
two circles, both of the finest gold, the upper circle 
being ornamented with fleurs-de-lis, and with pinnacles 
of gold, topped with pearls of immense size, while the 
under circle is adorned with twenty-two precious 
stones, with a magnificent pearl set between each stone, 
these being made of topazes, emeralds, amethysts, 
rubies, and jacinths, while there is a still smaller circle 
set with diamonds and sapphires alternately. The 
crown is twenty-seven inches in circumference, about 



HERO OF BANNOCKBURN. 467 

nine inches in diameter, and about six and a half inches 
in height from the bottom of the lower circle to the 
top of the cross, and considering the remote age in 
which it was designed, and that it dates back to Robert 
Bruce (nearly six centuries ago), it does not compare 
unfavorably with the royal tiara of Queen Victoria in 
the Jewel Room in the Tower of London. 

On the glorious field of Bannockburn, Bruce is his- 
torically represented as wearing an open crown or 
circlet of gold over his helmet, which made him a 
bright and shining mark for the attack of the English, 
and the King, being easily singled out by his glittering 
crown, this fact, no doubt, lured the fiery Sir Henry 
de Bohun on to his death, before the action had fairly 
begun, at the hands of the valiant Scottish chief, who, 
despite his helmet, cleft de Bohun to the chin with one 
stroke of his heavy battle-ax. In the stirring words 
of the poet : — 

" The monarch rode along the van, 
The foe's approaching force to scan," 

and Sir Henry de Bohun, extremely desirous, no doubt, 
of having the honor of engaging the Scottish king in 
single combat, — 

" He spurred his steed, he couched his lance, 
And darted on the Bruce at once." 

But he had "reckoned without his host" and truly 
did he find in the doughty Bruce, *' a foeraan worthy 
of his steel, "for — 

"While on the King, like flash of flame, 
Spurred to full speed, the war horse came! 



468 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Bat swerving from the knight's career, 
Just as they met, Bruce shunned his spear. 

• ' High in his stirrups, stood the King, 
And gave his battle-ax the sveing ; 
Such strength upon the blow was put. 
His helmet cracked like hazel-nut." 

By the way, 1 may state here, that on the way from 
Edinboro' to Loch Katrine, not far from Stirling and 
Stirling Castle, I passed the field of Bannockburn, 
^ and saw a banner proudly waving from a flag-staff on 
the field of battle, which took place in 1314, and was 
one of the most signal defeats that the English ever 
received, although King Edward 1. had 100,000 troops 
of the flower of England, to contend with the 30,000 
Highlanders of Bruce, and the result of which glorious 
victory was to raise Bruce from the dignity of a hunted 
rebel, with a price set upon his head, to the rank of 
an independent and undisputed sovereign, and success- 
ful warrior. 

To this day, the stone in which the Scottish stand- 
fl ard was flung to the breeze on that glorious day, is to 
be seen on the field, and it is called the " Bore Stone," 
' and is clamped all over with iron bars, I presume, to 
prevent the relic-hunter from breaking up and carry- 
ing away every vestige of its remnants. 

The sword of state is about five feet long, the handle 
and pommel being more than a foot in length, and are 
formed of silver, gilded, and highly carved and orna- 
mented, and the cross of the sword is represented by 
two dolphins, with their heads joined at the handles. 



THE SWORD OF STATE. 469 

The scepter is a slender silver rod in the form of 
a hexagon, and surrounded by an antique capital of 
embossed leaves, and which supports three small 
figures representing the Virgin Mary, Saint Andrew 
and Saint James. 

When King Charles I. succeeded King James VI. 
on the united thrones of England and Scotland, he de- 
sired the royal regalia to be sent up to London to be 
used at his coronation, but the canny Scots looked 
upon that as an infringement upon the sovereignty of 
Scotland, and in deference to the wishes of his Scot- 
tish subjects. King Charles found it incumbent upon him 
to visit Edinboro' in person, where he was crowned 
with the royal tiara, and invested with the sword, etc., 
according to the ancient custom, and this ceremony 
took place at Holyrood Palace, amidst the most mag- 
nificent and imposing pageantry that Scotland had ever 
witnessed up to that time, or, perhaps, ever has 
since. 

Another poet has spoken of the old castle, and its 
invaluable treasures and souvenii-s of the ancient glory 
of Scotland and her kings, as follows : — 

" The steep and iron-bedded rock, 
Where trusted lies the monarchy's last gems, 
The scepter, sword and crown that graced the brows, 
Since Father Fergus, of an hundred kings." 

Queen Margaret's chapel stands on the highest plat- 
form of the Castle Eock, and is undoubtedly the oldest 
and smallest chapel in Scotland, being but sixteen feet 
six inches long bv ten feet six inches in width. 



470 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Queen Margaret was the pious Queen of Malcolm III. 
(called also Canmore), and this chapel was probably 
built by her, and used as a place of worship during 
her residence at the Castle, and up to the period of her 
death in 1093. It is yet in an excellent state of preser- 
vation. 

I stepped inside of the little chapel to take a survey 
of it, when I found there, lying in wait for the unsus- 
pecting sight-seer, an old Scotchwoman, who besought 
me, with great earnestness and intense loquacity, to 
buy some of her photographs, views, etc., and she 
wanted especially to sell me the pictures of Eobert 
Burns and his " Highland Mary," but I finally escaped 
Cv from her by buying a few views, and also a photo- 
graph of a " Scotch Washing," which was both novel 
and interesting to me, as it gave me an insight into, 
at least, one more of the curious customs of that 
country. 

The picture (which was highly colored) represented 
a bonny Scotch lassie, with stout brawny limbs, bare to 
the knees, and standing in a tub filled with clothes and 
washing water, which she was, so to speak, kneading 
•T briskly with her feet in order to extract the dirt from 
them, and it occurred to me that the clothes would need 
considerable trampling before they would pass muster 
sufficiently well to be called clean. 

Hard by the chapel of Queen Margaret is the noted 
cannon " Mons Meg," on the Bomb Battery, which 
affords the finest view to be had from the Castle Rock 
of the new town of Edinboro' ; the public gardens, which 



" MONS MEG." 471 

nestle at the very foot of the rugged old Castle Kock, 
and of the magnificent Princes Street, one of the finest 
urban promenades in Europe, which is not excelled in 
natural beauties, probably, by any thoroughfare in the 
world, and which has for one of its chief ornaments 
and attractions the fine monument to the " Wizard of 
the North." 

Mons Meg is commonly believed to have been made 
at the City of Mons, in France, in 1476 ; but Sir 
Walter Scott claims for it a native pedigree. 

It is constructed much on the same principle as the 
modern Armstrong guns which had done so much 
(prior to the invention of the Gratling gun), to revo- 
lutionize warfare during the present century ; that is, 
it is made in coils or sections overlapping each other. 
It is thirteen feet, and seven inches in circumfer- 
ence, and has a caliber of twenty inches, and weighs 
more than five tons. 

Of course, by the side of the monster guns of 
modern times, especially the Krupp guns, or even 
some made in this country, this gun is a small affair, 
but when we consider it as the product of the eigh- 
teenth century, the gun is really a marvelous produc- 
tion. 

A pile of massive stone balls which lie beside it are 
said to have been fired from' Mons Meg, and after- 
wards gathered up on Wardie Moor, three miles dis- 
tant. The cannon was really forged at Castle Douglas 
for James 11., by McKim, a blacksmith of the place, 
in order to aid in the siege of the castle of Thrieve. 



472 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD, 

McKim named the cannon " Mollance Meg," jointly 
in honor of the estate which James II. gave him for 
his services in making the monster cannon (for it was 
the largest that had ever been seen in England, or per- 
haps in the world up to that time), and " Meg " being 
in honor of his wife. 

The cannon has a rent in it of considerable extent 
near the breech, which was made by an overcharge of 
powder, when firing a salute in honor of the visit of 
the Duke of York to the city in the year 1682. 

The gun also took part in the siege of Norham Castle 
in 1497, and in 1754, it was removed to the Tower of 
London, where it remained until 1829, when Sir Walter 
Scott obtained from King George IV. its triumphant 
restitution to the castle. 

The armory of the castle is now about all that is 
left for the curious to visit, and we conclude our sketch 
of the castle with a brief allusion to some things of in- 
terest which are to be seen there. 
' Among them, about fifteen thousand stands of arms, 
a coat of mail of one of the Douglases, ancient helmets, 
breast-plates, shields, Lochaber battle-axes, and a 
dagger worn by Rob Roy. 

Among the greatest curiosities, however, to be found 
there is an exceedingly ingenious steel shield, with a 
pistol barrel fixed in the center, and fired from behind 
through a small aperture in the shield, which must have 
been quite astonishing to the enemy when the pistol 
was suddenly and unexpectedly fired from behind into 
his face, and thus almost literally turning the shield 



THE ARMORY. 473 

into a sword. There is also a fine collection of steel 
pistols used by the Highlanders of Prince Charles at 
the battle of Culloden in 1745, which formed the sub- 
ject of Campbell's beautiful poem beginning: — 

" Lochiel, Lochiel, beware of the clay 
When the Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array 
For a field of blood rushes red on my sight, 
And the clans of Culloden are scattered in flight." 

There are also some swords which were taken from 
the French ; cuirasses stripped from Napoleon's heavy 
dragoons at Waterloo, and also specimens of the 
the weapons used in the Peninsular War, where Sir 
Arthur Wellesley made the reputation which afterwards 
made him the Duke of Wellington. 

The armory is thought to be built on the site of the 
secret postern through which the corpse of Queen 
Margaret was secretly removed to Dunfermline for the 
rites of sepulture, at the very time the castle was being 
stoutly besieged by Donald Bane, the usurper. 

We now leave the castle, and first passing the espla- 
nade, which was in ancient times a favorite promenade 
of the old town of Editiboro', where, in the days of 
Bloody Mary, executions often took place "for His 
sake," and where are to be seen several monuments to 
officers and soldiers of the British army, we soon reach 
the spacious thoroughfare (though not as fashionable 
a resort as its more aristocratic, though less historic 
neighbor, Princes Street in the new town), which 
intersects the old town between the castle and Holy- 
rood, which is about a mile long. 



474 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

This ancient and historic street, takes successively 
the names of Castle Hill, Townmarket, High Street, 
Netherbow, and Canongate. 

The oldest thoroughfare of Edinboro', however, is 
probably the West Bow, and it was through this an- 
cient street which made three bows or turns between 
the Grass market (which, we have said above, was di- 
rectly beneath the castle rock), that the earl of Both- 
well led Queen Mary, in pretended captivity to the 
castle, and when James VI., her son, brought home to 
Edinboro' his consort, Anne of Denmark, he entered 
the city in triumph by this route, and King Charles I., 
Charles H., Oliver Cromwell, and James H. while the 
Duke of York, also made their triumphal entry at 
various times. 

If you will step aside a few i^aces into the Cowgate 
which debouches into the Grass Market, you will notice 
an interesting chapel with a fine tower and spire, and 
which has the only painted glass windows in the city 
of Edinboro', which date back to a period prior to the 
Reformation. 

This church is mainly notable, however, because of 
its connection with the last sad rites of the martyred 
Marquis of Argyle who, at the same time that the 
Duke of Monmouth invaded England, and was de- 
feated at Sedgmoor in 1685, came back from Holland, 
and with his clan 5,000 strong, with their glittering 
claymores and their tartan plaids, who would have gone 
to the end of the world for MacCallum More, raised 
an insurrection against King James II. inthe Highlands, 



THE HISTORIC CHAPEL. 475 

which, however, was soon put down, and Argyle paid 
the usual penalty with his life, although he was the 
most powerful subject in the British dominions, his 
body having been carried hither, and lay in the chapel 
for some days, until it was removed by his friends to 
the family sepulchre at Kilmun, while his head was 
affixed to the north gable of the Tolbooth of Edinboro'. 

He had several years previously been convicted of 
treason, at the instigation of the wicked and unscru- 
pulous Duke of York, on the flimsiest grounds, upon 
grounds so untenable that even Halifax (one of the 
most notorious *' trimmers," and sycophants of the 
age), dared to say to King Charles, " I know nothing 
of Scotch law, but I do know that we should not hang 
a dog here, on the grounds on which my Lord Argyle 
has been sentenced." 

Argyle, however, made his escape to the Continent, 
and thus saved his life for the time being. 

His mainstay in this insurrection was Colonel Rich- 
ard Rumbold, who had been one of Oliver's Round- 
heads, who had held a commission in Cromwell's 
own regiment, had fought at Dunbar and Worcester, 
and had even guarded the scaffold before the Ban- 
queting House on the day when the head of King 
Charles T. rolled into the basket, and at whose house, 
what is known in history as the Rye House Plot was 
conceived, and near which it was attempted to be car- 
ried into execution, but which failed at the last mo- 
ment by reason of unforeseen circumstances. 

Colonel Rumbold was only in favor of making pris- 



476 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

oners of King Charles II., and his brother, the Duke 
of York, and thus wring from the king certain con- 
cessions which it was thought the good of the country 
required, but he had never been in favor of the king's 
assassination, as many were who were participants in 
the plot ; this was revolting to the conscience of the 
brave old soldier, but of course, if the king had hap- 
pened to be killed in the attack upon the royal coach 
while surrounded by his guards, this would only have 
been the fortune of war, and he would have had no 
qualms of conscience afterwards. However, base in- 
formers revealed the plot, and Rumbold, more fortunate 
than the virtuous Lord Russell, Sidney, Essex and 
others, made his escape to the Continent, and there in 
exile they pined for their native land, until they saw, 
as they thought, in Monmouth's rebellion, a chance to 
return to their fiative land, and the disastrous issue of 
which cost both of them their lives. 

Rumbold was brought to Edinboro' mortally wounded, 
but nevertheless, the inhuman James had him exe- 
cuted, fearing I suppose, as Charles II. remarked to 
his heartless courtiers on his death-bed, that he would 
" take an unconscionable time in dying," and his head 
was already on the west port of Edinboro' , when my 
Lord Argyle was led to the scaffold, where he died as 
became a Christian and a patriot. Argyle' s last words 
were, " Poor iRumbold was a great support to me, and 
a brave man, and died Christianly." 

The most shameful feature of Argyle' s death, was, 
that he was not tried for his latest offenses, but he was 



ARGYLE AND RUMBOLD 477 

actually beheaded on the sentence which had been so 
unjustly pronounced against him several years before. 
I speak thus at length of Argyle and Eumbold, be- 
cause the noted writer, Geo. W. M. Eeynolds, who so 
lashed the iniquities of various members of the useless 
royal family of England, that he was often fined 
and imprisoned, though it made no difference in re- 
gard to putting a stop to the productions of his pen, 
says in his book call the " Mysteries of the Court of 
Charles II., or the Eye House Plot," in which he 
paints the corruption and licentiousness of that court, 
perhaps the most vicious and the most corrupt that the 
world has ever seen (the court of Louis XIV., or of 
Catherine II. of Eussia, not excepted), that Argyle 
and Eumbold were saved at the eleventh hour by par- 
dons signed in blank which were surreptitiously obtained 
by some powerful courtier from James II. he not even 
suspecting that Argyle' s name would be inserted 
therein, for he hated him ^^vith a deadly hate. He 
also says that the Governor of the castle suspected 
that the pardons had been irregularly obtained, be- 
cause he well knew the feeling which King James had 
previously entertained towards Argyle in particular, 
but he dared not disregard the king's sign-manual, not 
knowing, of course, that the names of Argyle and 
Eumbold had been inserted without the king's knowl- 
edge, afterwards, so he let the prisoners go upon 
condition of their instantly leaving the country for 
America, but it was generally believed that they were 
executed. 



478 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Reynolds says that Argyle and Rumbold undoubtedly 
escaped the block, and that history has been falsified 
on this point, and he showed he believed this the 
more readily because he always painted the royal 
family in its various generations in as black colors as 
he could, and, indeed, in the same book, he asserts that 
Essex, who was said to have committed suicide in the 
tower, was assassinated in cold blood by the Duke of 
York, in order to obtain from him some paper which 
would seriously have compromised the latter. 

At the corner of the West Bow and the Cowgate is the 
house where Lord Brougham was born . The West Port 
at the west end of the Grass Market has an unenviable 
reputation in connection with the miscreants Burke and 
Hare in 1827-28, who killed people simply for the few 
dollars that their bodies would bring at the medical 
colleges for the purposes of dissection ; and, from which 
terrible atrocities, the phrase " Burking," has become a 
portion of the vocabulary of our language. But a 
great many people in Scotland (and particularly of 
the lower classes, although it is not confined to them 
as the sequel will show), of course, know more about 
this Burke, than they do about the wonderful orator 
who impeached Warren Hastings, the viceroy of India, 
in Westminster Hall, " of high crimes and misdemean- 
ors." 

In proof of this fact, if any were needed, the story 
is told of a west country magistrate, of good social 
position, that he once had the honor of dining with 
Louis Philippe ; and on being asked what his country- 



WEST BOW. 479 

men generally thought of Burke, the worthy provost, 
who it would seem never heard of the Burke who 
wrote the '* Reflections on the French Revolution," 
replied — *' 'Deed, your Majestic, I wush ye wad say 
nae mair aboot him ! it gars me grue (it makes me 
sick), when I hear the name of the scoondrel ! though 
atween you and me, I believe Hare was the warst o' the 
two." 

The West Bow was still a fashionable place a cen- 
tury ago, when Oliver Goldsmith was a rollicking young 
medical student in Edinboro' , and in his writings we find 
the following pen-picture of a fashionable ball of the 
period given in the Assembly Rooms, which, I presume, 
would hardly be a fit caricature of the lively, not to 
say forward manners of the present day, and is chiefly 
interesting as showing the difference between "our 
grandfather's days " and the present : — 

* ' When a stranger enters the dancing-room he sees 
one end of the room taken up with the ladies, who sit 
dismally in a group by themselves. On the other end 
stand their passive partners that are to be ; but no 
more intercourse between the sexes than between two 
countries at war. The ladies, indeed, may ogle and 
the gentlemen sigh, but an embargo is laid upon any 
closer commerce. At length, to interrupt hostilities, 
the lady directress pitches on a gentleman and lady to 
walk a minuet which they perform with a formality 
approaching to despondence. After five or six couples 
have thus walked the gauntlet, all stand up to country 



480 A liNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

dances, each gentleman furnished with a partner from 
the aforesaid lady-directress. So they dance much and 
say nothing, and this concludes our Assembly." 

In James' Court, which leads out of the Corn Market, 
is the house of Boswell, the " bear-leader " (or toady 
and general /ac^o^wm ) and biographer of Dr. Johnson, 
before they set out together on their tour to the Hebrides , 
1773. Boswell's flat was on the ground floor, in the 
west end of the north side of the court, but the house 
was destroyed by fire in 1857. Hume, the historian, 
was also a tenant of James' Court at one time. His 
house was the second flat above Boswell's, and Boswell 
succeeded Hume in that house, but afterwards removed 
to the one below. Hume also lived in Riddle's Close, 
and began his " History of England " there, and fin- 
ishing it in Jack's Land in the Canongate. 

We shall now have occasion to use the term 
*' Close " at intervals, so that we may as well explain 
at this point what the term means. The old houses of 
the old town of Edinboro' were mainly built with their 
gable ends to the street, and in solid blocks, with a 
view to make them more easily defensible from the 
occasional forays of plundering clans of Highlanders 
(which not infrequently occurred in those rude and 
troublous times), and the only entrance to those 
houses was by a narrow hall-way called a " Close," 
which could be easily barricaded against the invaders, 
and thus the houses made pretty good barracks, and 
could be much more readily defended from attack. 



"Baxter's close." 481 

Each '* Close" has its name inscribed over it in raised 
letters, and I noticed three of them with such curious 
names that I made a note of them. 

These three bore the names of *' Big Jack's Close," 
" Little Jack's Close," and most curious of all, 
"World's End's Close." 

Now we come to the place which is worthy of note 
as being the first lodging in Edinboro' occupied by 
Burns, " The Ayrshire Ploughman" (Baxter's Close, 
No. 469), in 1786, before he had reached the zenith of 
his fame. He staid with John Richmond, a law student 
and clerk, from Mauchline, who himself was a lodger 
with a Mrs. Carfrae. Her house was the first floor up, 
on the first stair to the left. 

On his visit to Edinboro', the next year. Burns 
staid in the top-flat of the southeast corner of St. 
James' Square (No. 30), in the new town, with his 
friend William Cruickshank, who was a teacher in the 
High School. 

We now reach the chief remaining ornament of the 
High Street of Edinboro' , which is the Cathedral of St. 
Giles, with its handsome tower and spire. 

In 1829, however, the old church underwent a res- 
toration, which left very little of the ancient structure, 
except the tower, with its magnificent spire or lantern, 
and the massive pillars which still support the magnifi- 
cent edifice. The exact date of the original erection of 
the Cathedral here is unknown, although Maitland, in 
his "History of Edinburgh," assigns it to the year 
854, and with whom Arnot coincides, but the first men- 
31 



482 A KNTGIIT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

tion to be found of the church is in a charter of David 
IL,in 1359. 

The chief interest, however, which attaches to St. 
Giles must ever be because it was here that John 
Knox made those fiery and soul-stirring appeals to the 
piety and patriotism of the Scotch metropolis, which 
perhaps did more than anything to establish the Ref- 
ormation in Scotland, this being the parish church of 
Edinboro' at the time. 

West St. Giles was formerly made up of two old 
churches, the Tolbooth and Haddo's Hall — the latter 
so-called because Sir John Gordon, of Haddo, was 
imprisoned in a neighboring apartment, prior to his 
execution in 1664. It was in the Tolbooth that, ac- 
cording to tradition, John Knox preached his last ser- 
mon, and made his last exhortation to sinners to " flee 
from the wrath to come," Saint Giles being tempora 
rily shut up. 

The old Tolbooth, or "Heart of Midlothian," is 
marked at the northwest corner by the figure of a 
large heart, which is probably five feet in length, and 
three feet in width, marked on the pavement. 

The Tolbooth was originally used as a Parliament 
House before the Union, and then as a prison, until in 
1817, when it was removed, a new jail having been 
erected that year. James Melville, in his diary, gives 
the following sjraphic description of Knox's preaching 
in his last days : — 

"In the opening of his text, he was moderat the 
space of an halff-houre ; but when he enter it to appli- 



ST. GILES' CHURCH. 483 

cation, he made me sa to grew and tremble that I 
culd nocht hald a pen to wryt. Mr. Knox wuld sum- 
tyme come in and repose him in our college yard, and 
call us scholars to him, and bless us and exhort us to 
know God and his wark in our country, and to stand 
by the guid caus. I saw him every day of his doc- 
trine (preaching) go holie and fear (cautiously) with 
a string of martriks about his neck, a staff in the ane 
hand, and guid godlie Eichart Ballenden, his servand, 
haldin up the other oxtar, from the abbey to the 
paroche Kirk, and by the said Richart and another 
servand, lifted up to the pulpit, where he behovit to 
lean at his first entrie, but or he had done with his 
sermon, he was sa active and vigorous that he was like 
to ding (beat) that pulpit in blads, and flee out of it." 
About five years ago, the Murray Window, a memo- 
rial of the Regent Murray, or Moray (Queen Mary's 
illegitimate brother), who was assassinated atLinlith- 
gorr, was placed in Saint Giles, containing six pictures, 
all bearing upon the Regent's assassination, one of 
them representing the death of the Regent, and another, 
John Knox, with his long, brown beard, preaching his 
funeral sermon, — the *' Good Regent ! " as the people 
called him, being one of the staunchest reformers 
among the Scotch nobles, and a great friend and ad- 
mirer of John Knox. Some idea of the boldness and 
fearlessness of this man, of whom Regent Morton said 
after his death, " there lies he who never feared the face 
of man," may be obtained from the fact that soon after 
Lord Darnley was married to Queen Mary, and after 



484 A ItNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

her proclamation which styled him king, but, never- 
theless, not associating him with her in the government 
of Scotland, on the 19th of August, 1565, he attended 
St. Giles' Church, where Knox, highly edified him by a 
strong and vigorous sermon, against the government 
of hoys and women (meaning, of course, him and the 
Queen), and Knox, no doubt, selected this text on the 
spur of the moment, upon seeing Darnley in the con- 
gregation. 

The '« Aid Kirk "of St. Giles, at the south end of 
the transept, was the scene of the righteous indigna- 
tion of Jenny Geddes, on that memorable day in 
1637, when the obnoxious liturgy of Laud, Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, (who, Macaulay says, " of all the 
prelates of the Anglican Church had departed farthest 
from the principles of the Reformation, and had drawn 
nearest to Rome" ), was to be introduced into Scotland 
by authority. In no portion of Europe, says Macaulay 
further, had the Calvinistic doctrine and discipline, 
which Knox had been disseminating with fiery energy 
broadcast throughout the land, taken so strong a hold 
upon the public mind. The effect of all this was that 
the Church of Rome was regarded, he says, by the 
great body of the people, with a hatred which 
might justly be called ferocious, and the Church of 
England, which seemed to be every day becoming more 
like the Church of Rome, was an object of scarcely 
less aversion, to the " unco guid," and (as Burns says,) 
" Orthodox, orthodox ; wha believed in John Knox." 
And, moreover, the promulgation of this liturgy, 



"GOOD REGENT." 485 

which aped the church of Rome entirely too much 
to suit the turbulent Scots, finally cost Laud his head, 
at the hands of Rump Parliament, and among other 
causes cost King Charles his kingdom and his head as 
well. 

As it happened, Jenny had taken her stool to church 
that day, and when the Bishop of Edinboro' had just 
asked the Dean to read *' the Collect for the day," 
Jenny burst out: '« Colic! said ye I the De'il colic 
the wame (belly) o' ye! Wud ye say mass at my 
lug (ear) I " And with that she lifted her stool, and 
sent it flying at the Dean's head. The stool is yet to 
be seen in the Antiquarian Museum, and as Dr. 
McCrie says, in his biography of John Knox, *' it was 
well for the Dean that he had learned to " jouk," or 
the consequences might have been serious." 

There was formerly, also, a monument to the Earl of 
Murray, the " Good Regent," in the Old Kirk, but in 
the alterations spoken of above it was destroyed ; but 
it was restored in facsimile^ by the present Earl of 
Moray. The memorial window has already been 
alluded to. 

Near the "Good Regent" (a misnomer, as it would 
seem, to the more refined notions of the nineteenth 
century, since he had participated in the conspiracy 
to assassinate Riccio, and afterwards Darnley as well, 
but in those rude times the sheddinoj of human blood 
seemed rather, than otherwise, to recommend a man to 
the favorable notice of his fellows, and who, it is 
worthy of note, finally himself died by violence), 



486 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

in the cryjits is the tomb of the Marquis of Montrose, 
which I paid a warder a shilling to show me. The 
father of the Earl of Argyle, of whose death on the 
block we have already spoken, was at the head of the 
faction which put Montrose to death, and he was 
brought into Edinboro' on a cart in charge of the 
conamon hangman, on Sunday, May 18th, 1650, and a 
fine picture illustrative of the scene by James Drum- 
mond, the Scotch historical painter, is to be seen in 
the National Gallery in Edinboro' . The cart on which 
he was placed in manacles was stopped for some time 
in front of Moray House, from which Argyle, Lorn, 
Loudon, and others of his enemies gloated over the 
downfall and degradation of their illustrious rival, and 
it is even said that the Countess of Haddington so far 
forgot her sex, her high position, and her dignity of 
character, as actually to spit upon him. Nailed to the 
cart are the sword, garter, cross of St. George, and 
starred cloak of the distinguished victim, together 
with the history of Scotland, during his guardianship, 
which was afterwards tied round his neck at his execu- 
tion. This picture is about six feet by four, and is 
finely executed. 

His sentence, which is eminently characteristic of 
the savage cruelty of the age, was that " he should be 
hanged on a gallows thirty feet high, his head fixed on 
the Tolbooth of Edinboro', and his body dismembered, 
and his limbs placed over the gates of the four chief 
towns of Scotland, — Perth, Stirling, Glasgow, and 
Aberdeen " — and he was executed May 21st, 1650. 



THE OLD CEMETERY. 487 

It was said of him that he was ' ' the noblest of all 
the Cavaliers," having fought valiantly for King 
Charles, and prior to that, having been the great leader 
of the Covenanters, and his epitaph, written by himself, 
breathes the most earnest Christian faith and hope in 
every line. It is as follows, taken from his tomb in 
the gloomy crypts of Saint Giles : — 

" Let them bestow on every airth a limb, 
Then open all my veins that I may swim 
To Thee, my Maker, in that crimson lake, 
Then place my parboiled head upon a stake 
Scatter my ashes, strew them in the air, 
Lord, since thou kndwest where all these atoms are 
I'm hopeful Thou'lt recover once my dust, 
And confident Thou'lt raise me with the just." 

The ancient cemetery once attached to Saint Giles 
on the south, is now covered by the pavement and 
buildings of Parliament Square. 

John Knox was buried in this old cemetery, and in 
his case, as in Calvin's, there is some doubt as to the 
exact spot where he is buried; but it is believed by 
the best authorities that the distinguished Eeformer 
is buried near the equestrian statue of Charles II. 
The spot is marked by a square stone set in the ground 
with only the initials, "J. K." marked upon it, and, 
to the shame of Edinboro' be it said, this is the only 
mark that she can show to designate the last resting 
place of her greatest and most renowned citizen and 
benefactor. * ' Peace hath her victims no less renowned 
than war," and this, almost the greatest of the fol- 
lowers of the Prince of Peace, has no monument in the 



488 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

city of Edinboro' save in the hearts of her people, and 
his house is to them, as well as to wandering pilgrims, 
what Mecca is to the pious Mussulman. 

Glasgow, however, has outstripped Edinboro' in this 
regard, and the most conspicuous monument in her 
beautiful Necropolis is that erected to the memory of 
the great leader who, together with Calvin, Luther, and 
Erasmus, shares the glory of the Eeformation, which 
was mainly accomplished through their untiring and 
gigantic efforts. 

The sittings of the Parliament and the College of 
Justice were transferred from the old Tolbooth of Saint 
Giles to the Parliament House in 1639. In the middle 
of the square there is an equestrian statue, in lead, of 
Charles II., erected by the city corporation in 1685. 
It is believed to have been sculptured in Holland, 
but the name of the artist is unknown. 

It is a curious circumstance, and one which shows 
the fickleness of the human mind, and its tendency to 
worship him whose star is in the ascendant, and to for- 
get all past obligations and memories as soon as possi- 
ble, that the site was originally destined for a statue of 
the Protector, Cromwell, during the Commonwealth, 
and the model of the great Roundhead leader was 
actually in existence when the Restoration took place, 
and the magistrates of Edinboro', quick 

" To crook the pregnant hinges of the knee 
Where thrift may follow fawning," 

at once relegated Oliver to obscurity, and gave orders 
for a statue of the "Merry e Monarch," which was 
afterwards erected on the identical spot. 



advocate's library. 489 

The fulsome and preposterously overdrawn inscrip- 
tion in Latin on the pedestal was discovered among a 
lot of old lumber below the Parliament House, when 
the statue was erected, after the great fire in the old 
town in 1824. 

I translated a portion of it which I give below, and 
I no longer wondered that the magistrates did not wish 
to stultify their manhood and their honesty, by certi- 
fying to the character of, perhaps, the most corrupt and 
worthless of the many bad monarchs of England, and 
that they left to their successors, one hundred and 
fifty years later, the humiliating task of having placed 
in its present position, this testimonial to their own 
disgrace. 

The inscription is several feet in length, and its 
opening sentence is entirely in keeping with its con- 
clusion. 

It begins thus : — 

" To the most august and magnificent Charles II. 

King of Britain, Gaul, and Ireland, 
The most invincible monarch," etc., ad nauseam. 

From the Parliament House, you enter the Advo- 
cate's Library, which like the British Museum, has the 
privilege of receiving a copy of every book published 
in the United Kingdom. 

It contains already 150,000 volumes, and many hun- 
dreds of valuable MSS., among which are several 
copies of the solemn League and Covenant, with the 
original subscriptions, some of which are even written 
with the very blood of the subscribers. 



490 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Passing on down the High Street, for we are now 
getting impatient (as, perhaps, our readers as well) to 
reach John Knox's house, and Holyrood Palace, we 
pass Dunbar's Close which was the headquarters of 
Cromwell's "Ironsides," after the battle of Dunbar 
enabled him to gain possession of the castle and city 
of Edinboro', and Cromwell himself occupied an old 
house near the guard-room, the latter having been 
recently removed. 

Tradition says that Cromwell was in the habit of prom- 
enading on the flat stone roof of his lodging here, and 
whence he would give an occasional glance towards the 
Firth of Forth in order to reassure himself that his 
fleet was still secure. 

Now we come to a house made forever famous by its 
association with Robert Burns, and other intellectual 
luminaries of Scotland (the Anchor Close, No. 243), 
where formerly stood the printing office of William 
Smellie, who here corrected the proofs of the Edin- 
boro' edition of his poems, and it was here, also, were 
printed the first editions of many of the works of Dr. 
Blixir, Robertson the historian, Adam Ferguson, 
Hume, and Adam Smith, whose valuable book, " The 
Wealth of Nations," laid the cornerstone of the Sci- 
ence of Political Economy. " The Crochallan Fenci- 
bles," of whom Burns was a boon companion, met in a 
tavern in Anchor Close. 

On we go down the High Street, and next we see an 
antique looking church, which sits back from the street 
some distance called the Trone Church, from the 



HIGH STREET. 491 

' ' Trone,' ' or weighing beam , which once stood near, and 
to which in. olden times, false witnesses were nailed by 
the ear, as a warning to perjurers, and, methinks, from 
the average results which we see every day of the pro- 
ceedings of our courts of justice, that we might copy, 
with advantage, the custom of the " Trone," barbarous 
though it be, for the benefit of our malefactors of this 
class, whose name is legion. 

Directly opposite the Trone Church is the under- 
ground shop (No. 177 High Street), where tradition 
says that the articles of Union between Scotland and 
England were finally subscribed, early in the last century. 
Some of the commissioners had already signed the ar- 
ticles in the Parliament House, but those who had not 
done so, had met for the purpose in a summer house, 
behind Moray House, Ganongate, but the mob not ap- 
proving of the Union, forced them to withdraw 
before completing their signatures, which they finally 
did in secret at No. 177. 

Carrubbers' Close (No. 135) is notable in the history 
of Protestantism as the meeting place to which the 
Episcopalians were reduced, on the downfall of the 
prelatic establishment, which twenty-seven years of 
bloody persecution by " Kirke's Lambs," Graham of 
Claverhouse, and others, (and which resulted in the 
death of thousands of martyrs') failed to force upon 
Presbyterian Scotland. 

Still farther down the High Street, and on the same 
side, Strichen's Close (No. 104), has the unenviable 
distinction of having been the residence of Sir George 



492 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Mackenzie, King's Advocate during the reign of Charles 
II., and well known in Scottish Martyrology as " The 
Bliiidy Mackenzie," and whose cruelty and oppression 
in Scotland were hardly surpassed in infamy by Jeffeys 
of " The Bloody Assizes," in England, after the defeat 
of Monmouth in 1685, at Sedgmoor. 

At last we reach John Knox's house, and we have at 
this point come up, with the fourth member of the 
great Quadrivirate (if I may make so bold as to coin a 
word), who accomplished the work of the Eeformation, 
having already visited Geneva the home of Calvin, 
Basle where Erasmus is buried, and Worms, where 
Luther stood his great trial for heresy, and came forth 
triumphant, as did of old Meshach, Shadrach, and Ab- 
ednego from the fiery furnace. 

The house (No. 47), projects into the street at the 
Netherbow, and is^ in a fairly good state of preserva- 
tion, as the original oak panelling of the walls has 
been replaced by wood taken from other old Edinboro' 
houses of the same period. Over the door is the in- 
scription, no doubt placed there at the instance of 
Knox himself, " Lufe God abufe al,"and yi nychtbour 
asyiself." There is a projection on the south front, 
which was added to the house for its increased accom- 
modation, and which was Knox's favorite resort, and 
which he called the " warm study of daillis" (that is 
made of planks or boards). 

Knox lived in that house from 1560 to 1572. Many 
a grave consultation, pregnant with great national 
issues, has been held in this famous old building, and 



JOHN KNOX's HOUSE. 493 

many a cheerful supper the great Keformer had here 
with his friends. Though the care of all the churches 
of Scotland, and even the nation itself, pressed heavily 
on his spirits more or less at all times, yet he never 
utterly despaired, and always believed in the ultimate 
success of the good cause. 

He was a man of a very different temperament from 
the narrow-minded and dogmatic Calvin, and was by 
no means the sullen and morose fanatic that he has 
been represented, by critics unfriendly to the cause and 
the grand results of the Reformation. 

No man enjoyed social intercourse more than he, 
when he had a fair opportunity for it. Only a few 
days before his death, he desired his servant to broach a 
a cask of wine which had been presented to him, that 
he might share it with some friends who were paying 
him a visit, as he remarked that he was " not like to 
tarry till it be finished." 

He died in the sixty-seven year of his age, Novem- 
ber 24th, 1572, just exactly three months after the 
horrible butchery of the Protestants of France, and, 
doubtless, the sorrow and agony that Knox must have 
felt at this terrible catastrophe, which, like lightning 
from a clear sky, had so unexpectedly befallen the 
Huguenots, hastened the end of this great champion of 
Christendom. 

Knox had been married twice, having two sons by 
his first wife, and three daughters by his second wife. 
His widow afterwards married a gentleman of landed 



494 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

estate, and consequently removed to the country, and 
took the furniture of the household with her to her 
new home, which probably accounts for the fact that 
there is nothing of the original furniture now to be 
seen in the house, with the exception of a large arm- 
chair. 

This chair was restored to the house of John Knox 
by a son of Doctor McCrie, who was the pastor of 
McCrie Free Church, in Richmond Street, Edinboro, 
and about two hundred years after Knox's death wrote 
his biography. 

As I had already seated myself in Calvin's chair at 
Geneva, I thought I might as well do the same by Knox 
in Edinboro, so I seated myself in this chair, and for a 
few minutes amused myself by leisurely turning over 
the leaves of Knox's " History of the Reformation," 
and scanning a curious passage here and there, and 
while so doing I came upon one extract, which so well 
explains his attitude towards the Stuarts and the in- 
creasing power of Rome in Scotland, that I transcribe 
it here, at the risk of being a little tedious, and then 
leave the subject to abler pens than mine. 

Mary of Guise, the mother of Mary, Queen of Scots, 
after the death of her husband, James V., who died 
when the future Queen of Scots was but a week old, 
was, of course, the Queen Regent of Scotland until her 
death, and the accession of" Queen Mary, and to her 
Knox alludes in the following passage : — 

* ' We are compelled unwillingly to answer the 



KNOX'S HISTORY. 495 

grievous accusations laid to our cliarges by the Queen 
Regent, and her perverse counsell, v^ho cease not by 
all craft and malice to make us odious to our dearest 
brethren, naturall Scottish men, as that we pretended 
no other thing, but the subversion and overthrow of 
all just authoritie, when God knoweth we fought 
nothing but that such authoritie as God approveth by 
His word be established, honoured and obeyed amongst 
us. True it is, that we have complained (and contin- 
ually must complaine, till God send redresse), that our 
common countrey is oppreffed with strangers, that this 
inbringing of soldiers with their wives and children, 
and planting of men of war in our free towns, appear- 
eth to us a ready way to conquest. 

"And we most earnestly require all indifferent per- 
sons to be judge betwixt us and the Queen Regent in 
this cause, to wit, whether our complaint be just or 
not ? For what other purpof e should she thus multi- 
ply ftrangers upon us, out only in respect of conquest, 
which is a thing of late devised by her, and her avari- 
tious houfe." 

Knox's History of the Reformation, Book Second, 
p. 186, printed in London 1644, and in another place, 
he calls the Queen Regent's troops, " new throat cut- 
ters." 



49(5 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



EDINBORO' CONTINUED — THE SCOTCH LAKES — GLASGOW, 
AND HOMEWARD BOUND. 

^^^^Y this time, our anxiety to reach Holyrood Pal- 
^^ ace becomes intense, and we can hardly give due 
attention to what we see around us, but as the Canon- 
gate is the last portion of the High Street between the 
Castle and Palace (the High Street bearing the same 
relation to these historic hills that Pennsylvania Ave- 
nue does to the Capitol and the White House at Wash- 
ington, the President being familiarly known as " the 
man at the other end of the Avenue"), and there are 
several things of interest to be seen here, we will 
stop a few minutes as we pass by, at any rate. The 
Canongate was begun in the early part of the twelfth- 
century, (and its antique and time-stained buildings, 
indeed, look much older than that) by the Augustine 
Canons of Holyrood, who ruled as a burgh of regality, 
under a charter from King David I., and many of the 
houses yet retain the venerable appearance of the 
ancient court end of the city. 

These Closes are now, however, inhabitated by the 
very tag-rag and bobtail of the city of Edinboro' , and at 
some places on the High Street it was all that I could 
do to get through the crowds of rough looking men and 
slatternly and dirty-looking women, and the still 



EDINBORO'S FIRST THEATER. «s 497 

dirtier and lialf-nalsed children who were congregated 
here and there at the entrance of these Closes ; but no 
longer ago than the latter part of the last century, 
this portion of the High Street in particular, was 
inhabited by many persons of social distinction, and 
by the high and mighty in every walk of life. 

The Playhouse Close (No. 200) is noted as the site 
of the first theater erected in Edinboro' in 1746. 
James VI., of Scotland, and his grandson, the Duke of 
York, afterwards James II. of England, encouraged the 
the Drama by liberal subsidies, but the " cannie 
Scots" still felt the influence of John Knox, and did not 
take much interest in the Play-house. 

In the succeeding generation, however, public opin- 
ion had become more liberal, and had changed so 
greatly that when the divine Mrs. Siddons, with all her 
beauty and talent, made her debut in Edinboro', accord- 
ing to Dr. Carlyle, she electrified the whole city to that 
degree, " that w^hen she first appeared in Edinburgh 
during the sitting of the General Assembly, that Court 
was obliged to fix all its important business for the 
alternate days when she did not act, as all the younger 
members of the clergy, as well as the laity, took their 
stations in the theater on those days by three in the 
afternoon." 

The theater in which Mrs. Siddons performed was 
erected in 1769, and for many years the Edinboro' 
company was reckoned equal to the best London play- 
ers, but it has since been removed to make room for 
the new post oflSce, while the old play-house was 

32 



498 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

demolished many years ago, to make room for dwelling 
houses. 

In St. John Street, which enters from the Canon- 
gate through an archway a few steps further on, was 
the residence of Tobias Smollett, who wrote a history 
of England, besides continuing Hume's great history, 
after the death of the latter, who translated Voltaire 
and Don Quixote, and who, "as an author, distin- 
guished himself as an historian, a novelist, a journal- 
ist of travels, a dramatist, and a poet; and who must 
be acknowledged to have made a considerable addition 
to the stock of elegant and useful literature," and, 
nevertheless, while he and Fielding both stood ac- 
knowledged facile principeSi and as at the head of En- 
glish writers of fiction, yet both died in comparative 
obscurity and neglect. The next building, on the 
same side, was the headquarters of the Canongate Kil- 
winning Lodge of Freemasons, where Robert Burns 
was exalted to the most sublime degree of a Royal 
Arch Mason, and dubbed Poet Laureate of the Lodge. 
Burns was an enthusiastic and earnest Freemason, as 
any one will easily see by an examination of his beauti- 
ful verses. For the edification of my Masonic breth- 
ren, T will here quote a portion of the poem entitled 
''Invitation to a Medical Gentleman to attend a 
Masonic Anniversary Meeting," on St. John's Day, 
the 24th of June : — 

« Friday First's the day appointed, 
By our Right Worshipful anointed, 
To hold our grand procession ; 



THE POET LAUREATE. 499 

To get a blade o' Johnny's morals, 

And taste a swatch (sample) o' Mausin's barrel. 

r the way of our profession, 

Our Master and the Brotherhood 

Wad a' be glad to see you ; 

For me, I would be mair than proud 

To share the mercies with you." 

The poet was also a frequent and an honored guest, 
at No. 13, the residence of Lord Monboddo, and his 
beautiful daughter, Miss Burnet, who was one of the 
greatest beauties of her time, but who died at the age 
of twenty-three, of consumption, and to whom he ad- 
dressed his touching elegy, beginning thus: — 

" Life ne'er exulted in so rich a prize 
As Burnet, lovely from her native skies ; 
Nor envious Death so triumphed in a blow 
As that which laid th' accomplished Burnet low." 

She must have been surpassingly lovely, for the en- 
raptured poet speaks of her as ' ' the heavenly Miss 
Burnet, in a letter to his friend, William Chalmers, 
and says: " There has not been anything nearly like 
her in all the combinations of beauty, grace, and good- 
ness the Creator has formed, since Milton's Eve on 
the first day of her existence." Her father. Lord 
Monboddo, by the way, propounded the theory that 
the hupian family is descended from the monkey tribe, 
long before this theory was broached by the modern 
school of scientists of which Darwin is the chief ex- 
ponent, and of course he was sneered at, and made the 
butt of many a jest by his contemporaries, who called 
him " eccentric," but it was, no doubt, the eccentric- 



500 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

ity of genius. It is said that he was frequently beset 
with the jocular request, " show us your tail, Mon- 
boddo?" 

No. 10 St. John St. was the residence of James 
Ballantine, the printer of the original editions of the 
" Waverly," novels, when all the world was agog to 
know who was the great author of the wonderful 
series of romances which startled the literary world 
especially with conjectures as to the identity of the 
brilliant star which had just shot, athwart the horizon 
of letters, and whose failure involved Sir Walter Scott 
as a partner in liabilities to the enormous amount of 
£125,000 or $625,000, which Sir Walter paid by the 
most untiring energy and unremitting labor, coupled 
with the immense popularity of everything which fell 
from his pen — but it cost him his life. 

Ballantine always gave a dinner to the prominent 
Literati of the Scottish capital upon the occasion of 
the publication of one of Sir Walter Scott's produc- 
ductions, and these symposia were among the most 
notable gatherings which ever took place in the British 
Isles, as Edinboro' at that time was the nucleus of much 
of the talent of the United Kingdom. 

The Canongate Tolbooth and court-house, with its 
clock projecting over the street, like the houses of the 
period of Queen Anne in various parts of England 
and Scotland, is a fine specimen of the Scottish archi- 
tecture of the time of James VI. High up on the 
building is the inscription Patriae et Posteris and the 
date 1591. Singularly enough, the inscription over the 



CANONGATE CHURCH. 501 

entrance is Sic itur ad astra, the entrance to a prison 
house and place of justice being hardly a proper in- 
troduction to the " strait and narrow way," unless the 
prisoners could be brought to believe, like Uriah Heep, 
that " it would be better for every body, if they got 
took up and was brought here." 

In front of the building, at the east end, there is 
yet an old stone pillar, to which certain offenders, par- 
ticularly scolds and slanderers, were fastened by jougs 
or iron collars, and the iron staple to which the jougs 
were fastened may still be seen upon the pillar. 

We are in the habit very often of speaking of our 
ancestors as having been old-fogy, and all that sort of 
thing, but they had some customs which might have 
been handed down to our day with great advantage ; 
and these ancient modes of punishment for slanderers, 
scolds, and perjurers, would no doubt have a salutary 
effect upon modern evil-doers, could they only be 
re-introduced by some daring innovator. 

Next door to the Tolbooth is the old Canongate 
Church, which was erected in the year 1688 — the no- 
table year in which the Papist King James II. ignobly 
forsook his kingdom and his crown upon the arrival 
from Holland of William and Mary, the Prince and 
Princess of Orange, who, upon their accession to the 
throne which James had filled so unworthily, made 
England once more a Protestant country ; and from 
that day none but those who held the faith of the Church 
of England have been allowed to sit upon the throne of 



502 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

that majestic empire, whose proud boast it is that 
*' upon her dominions the sun never sets." 

The churchyard, however, demands a visit, for 
here are entombed some of the brightest Literateurs of 
Scotland. 

First and foremost, we shall mention one who lies 
there because the self-same all-important topics upon 
which he was the first to write learnedly and philo- 
sophically, is at the very moment while I write dis- 
ti acting this great country of ours from center to 
circumference, and which, in fact, is the main dis- 
tinffuishino; feature of and essential difference between, 
the two great political parties of this country ; I mean, 
of course, the doctrine of Free Trade, and I 
allude to its first great apostle and luminous expon- 
ent, Adam Smith, the author of the book which has, 
next to the Bible and Shakespeare, perhaps produced 
more controversy than any other production with 
which we are acquainted — because as everybody 
knows, the government of no country can be success- 
fully carried on unless its finances, which are, of 
course, the keystone of the whole structure, are 
administered upon sound and economic principles. 

Other distinguished dead are here, chief among them, 
Dugald Stewart, another noted professor of Moral 
Philosophy in the University of Glasgow ; Dr. Adam 
Ferguson, the historian of the Eoman Republic ; David 
Allen, the artist ; and the poet Robert Ferguson, who 
like Chatterton, the youthful forger of Black Letter 



OLD SCOTTISH LAW. 503 

Literature, who confounded and deceived for a long 
time the best literary talent of Europe as to the genu- 
ineness of his wonderfully clever productions, and 
who, like him, also died under the most lamentable 
circumstances; Eobert Burns so much revered the 
memory of Ferguson, whom he called his *' elder 
brother in the Muses," that poor and needy as he 
was, out of the very first installment of the money 
which he received from the Edinboro' edition of his 
poems, he devoted so much as was necessary to erect 
a suitable monument to the memory of the talented 
and lamented Ferguson, with an inscription written by 
his own hand. 

By this time we are almost under the very walls of 
ancient Holy rood, and have reached the Abbey Sanc- 
tuary, which (like the sanctuary of olden times, when 
even the murderer was safe from pursuers could he 
but reach the altar, even of some heathen god) yet in 
conjunction with Arthur's seat, Salisbury Crags, and 
the Queen's Park, constitutes the only remaining 
sanctuary in Scotland. 

This portion of my, I fear, uninteresting descrip- 
tion of Edinboro' is, by the way, for the benefit of my 
friends of the legal profession who, I trust, will 
relish it as a matter of interest in the history of the 
Scottish law, if for no other reason. 

Protection is here afibrded only to debtors, and 
fraudulent bankrupts are excluded, of course, so that 
the privilege is probably not greatly abused. 

These " protections " are issued at the Abbey 



504 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Court House, where the " Bailie of the Abbey," tries 
such offenses as may come within his jurisdiction. 
The Abbey Bailie is appointed by the Duke of Hamil- 
ton, who is the hereditary keeper of the palace. 

Many amusing and curious anecdotes are related, 
even to this day, of the many hair-breadth escapes of 
the "Abbey Lairds" (as these poor fugitives were 
called in the olden times) from their unfortunate 
creditors, and the bailiffs who were always on the 
lookout to pounce upon them unawares. 

Sunday was a day especially welcome to the Abbey 
Lairds, because on that day, by the law of Scotland, 
they were at liberty to go where they chose, but woe 
to any unlucky wight if he transgressed the hour, for 
then he was generally in for a long chase at the hands 
of the bumbailiffs, who were always on their trail ; but, 
(like the witches who pursued Tam O'Shanter, " who 
could not cross a running stream," and had to content 
themselves with a portion of the tail of his old grey 
mare, Meg) they dared not cross the sacred strand of 
the Canongate, and hence they always " made the best 
time they could " before their victims could reach the 
sanctuary. 

It is said that upon one occasion, a fugitive who was 
hotly pursued by the bailiffs as usual, fell just as he 
reached the strand. His body fell over the " dead 
line," but his legs were seized upon before he could 
regain his feet. He was thereupon taken into court, 
and there then ensued much debating and citation of 
authorities j3ro and con by the learned barristers, and 



A KNOTTY CASE. 505 

then by the big wigs in the Parliament House, as alike 
case had never before come up for judgment, and the 
precedent which they were about to fix would, of course, 
be an important one, as to whether the fugitive was 
legally in custody, as only his legs had been captured 
at the original taking. 

Finally, however, after long deliberation it was de- 
cided that as the bailiff could do nothing with the man's 
legs, unless he had the body they belonged to, and as the 
man's body was clearly proven to be over the sanctuary, 
the debtor must be allowed, in contemplation of law, to 
be where his head and body were, and hence he must be 
discharged from custody, on the principle, I suppose, 
of the homely adage that "the tail goes with the 
hide ; " but this is not always the case, but as the gram- 
mars say " the exception proves the rule," and I read 
only the other day an amusing story which shows that 
" the tail does not always go with the hide," but in the 
case I speak of, the tail went with the other cow. It 
seems that in New Jersey, not long ago, a mischievous 
boy tied the tail of a cow which his father owned, to the 
tail of a neighbor's cow. The cows, however, nat- 
urally soon desired to go each her own way, which, of 
course, produced a kicking tournament, and the result 
was that the cow belonging to the boy's father ran 
away with her own tail, and the tail of the other cow 
as well, and the result of the joke was that a jury 
assessed the value of the abstracted caudal appendage 
at $10, which the father of the hopeful youth had to 
pay. 



506 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Of course, you pay something as usual to see Holy- 
rood, but it is only a sixpence, and you procure you 
a ticket, and hasten on to see particularly the scene 
of Queen Mary's high disputes with John Knox, and 
the little banquet room where Eiccio was assassinated 
before the very eyes of the Queen. 

The first house which was erected on the site of the 
present Palace of Holyrood, was the Abbey, founded 
by David I., and named Holyrood Abbey, because, 
according to an ancient monkish legend, a cross of 
wood like the " holy rude " (or Holy Cross) was 
miraculously placed in his hands, and frightened off a 
large stag which he had brought to bay near the castle 
rock, and which was about to thrust him with his 
antlers. It is said that there was an old abbey at the 
foot of the castle rock prior to the foundation of Holy- 
rood Abbey, and it is probable that the monks were 
removed from this Abbey to Holyrood. • 

The palace is a large quadrangular building, with a 
court yard about 100 feet square, and when I visited the 
palace a member of the 92nd (Gordon) Highlanders, 
was on guard, and was parading majestically up and 
down before the palace, with his picturesque uniform, 
which is, I think, the handsomest in the world, with 
his plaid kilt, and scarlet jacket, his tartan scarf over 
his shoulder and his knees bare to the calf of his leg, 
with a dagger in his fancy colored stocking, his white 
gaiters, and his plorran hanghig down in front, and 
his big shako, all made a striking picture ; and the 
Highland costume for a boy is very handsome, indeed. 



HOLYROOD PALACE. 507 

and in the cities of England and Scotland it is affected 
by a great many. 

These Scotch Highlanders wear the same costume 
winter and summer, and when I first saw them, I was 
at once reminded of a story which I had heard a legal 
friend of mine who is a first-rate raconteur (Judge 
A — is his name, by the way), tell about a certain man 
who was once being examined in a court of justice in 
regard to a certain transaction. 

The man stammered habitually, and when the ques- 
tion was asked him as to how he was dressed upon a 
certain occasion, he after some hesitation, stutteringly 
replied, that he " was dressed coo-coo-coo-1," and it 
occurred to me that the Scotch Highlanders looked 
very picturesque for summer, but for winter, they too, 
were dressed rather " cool." 

But this is a digression, and we must hurry on to 
more important matters. 

The only portion of the. palace which is of much an- 
tiquity is the northwest tower, in which are Queen 
Mary's apartments, and which is the portion of the 
palace which visitors are especially anxious to see, 
because here everything is permeated by the surround- 
ings of the beautiful and unhappy Queen. Upon reach- 
ing Queen Mary's rooms, the first, and with the 
exception of the little banqueting chamber, in many 
respects the most interesting apartment is the audi- 
ence chamber, which, like the other rooms, is decorated 
with tapestry, and a very handsome oak-paneled ceil- 
ing. This room has been made forever famous by 



508 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

the controversies which took place here between the 
Queen and her much-hated opponent, John Knox. 
Upon one occasion Knox presented himself at Holy- 
rood, carrying with him, as was his wont, a well- 
thumbed copy of the Scriptures, and Queen Mary 
suggested to him that he should more nearly follow 
the precepts of the Gospel which he preached, and the 
example of the *'meek and lowly Jesus," whom he 
had taken for his exemplar, and accordingly "use 
more meekness in his sermons," but the fiery Knox 
blazed forth at her so fiercely in reply, and " knocked 
so hastily upon her heart, that he made Queen Mary 
weep." Amid her tears of anguish and indignation, 
she said to Knox: *' My subjects, it would appear, 
must obey you, and not me ; I must be subject to them, 
not they to me." After some further altercation, 
Knox was dismissed from royal presence, and he left 
Holyrood, fully of the conviction that Queen Mary's 
soul was lost forever, and that her conversion from 
Romanism was hopeless, because she would persist 
*' in her massing, and despised and quickly mocked all 
exhortations." 

Here, too, it was that Mary demanded of the 
Reformer, " think you that subjects having the power, 
may resist their princes? " and received the bold reply, 
"If princes exceed their bounds. Madam, no doubt 
they may be resisted even by power." Here, too, it 
was, when the Queen turned her back in anger on her 
faithful monitor ( who might, perhaps, have changed the 
current of her life, and eventually have altered her sad 



HISTORIC ROOMS. 509 

fate, had she but listened to his advice in the same 
kindly spirit in which it had been tendered), that Knox 
who never missed an opportunity of speaking a word 
in season, addressed himself to her maids of honor, 
the four Marys: Mary Fleming, Mary Bethune, Mary 
Livingstone, and Mary Seton, and others of her court 
whom he thus solemnly admonished: — 

*' O fair ladies, how pleasing were this lyfe of yours 
if it would always abyde, and then, in the end that ye 
pass to heaven with all this gay gear ! But fie upon 
the Knave Death, that will come whether we will or 
not, and when he has laid on his arrest, the foul worms 
will be busy with his flesh, be it never so fair and 
tender ; and the silly soul, I fear, shall be so feeble, 
that it can carry with it gold, garnishing, targatting, 
pearl, nor precious stones." 

At the entrance to the audience chamber is the spot 
to which Riccio (Rizzio, as they spell it in Scotland), 
was dragged from the banquet-room through Queen 
Mary's bed-room and the audience-room, after he had 
been repeatedly stabbed by the conspirators, and as it 
is said that blood will remain for centuries in wood, it 
may be that it is really the blood of the unfortunate 
Spanish secretary, but at any rate, whether it be the 
blood of Rizzio or not, at any rate the flooring is curi- 
ously discolored. 

Queen Mary's bed-room contains Queen Mary's bed, 
her work box, and portraits of Henry VIII., and her 
cousin. Queen Elizabeth; in the audience chamber 



510 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABEOAD. 

is to be seen a grate, which is said to be the 
first one which was ever used in Scotland. The 
. bed-room communicates with the small supper room 
at which,' at the time of Riccio's assassination, were 
seated six persons beside herself, although it is so 
very small that when I went into the room I wondered 
where they found room for the table at all. 

The conspirators were admitted to the palace by 
Lord Darnley, and came through his apartments up a 
private stair-case which opens into Queen Mary's bed- 
room and directly adjoining her supper-room. 

Darnley threw his arms around the Queen and held 
her, while Ruthven, George Douglas, and others of the 
conspirators attacked Rizzio. They rushed in so vio- 
lent that they upset the supper table upon the floor, and 
Riccio seeing that they sought his life, sprang behind 
the Queen, exhorting her to save him, but nevertheless, 
Douglas stabbed him over the Queen's shoulder with 
the King's dagger which he had snatched from its sheath 
and left it sticking in the wound. Mary begged 
earnestly for his life, but all to no purpose ; but when 
she learned that he was dead, she dried her tears, and 
said, " I will now study revenge," and afterwards 
when Ruthven, still dripping with Rizzio's blood, had 
the presumption to return to the presence of the Queen 
and ask for a glass of wine, she said to him, *' It shall 
be dear blude to some of you." These declarations, 
for which allowance should be made, because uttered 
under very exciting circumstances, and while undergo- 



QUEEN MARY. 511 

ing a very trying ordeal, (and it should "be remembered, 
also, that the Queen was in delicate health at the time, 
her son, afterwards King James I. of England, 
having been born but a short time subsequent to this 
tragedy), coupled with the subsequent death of Darnley 
by violence, and her marriage to Bothwell, his un- 
doubted murderer, were afterwards remembered to her 
disadvantage, and have largely contributed to involve 
her memory in the obloquy from which she has ever 
suffered in the opinion of many, but as many authori- 
ties think, most unjustly. 

One of the most notable pictures in the National 
Gallery in Edinboro', represents the death of Eiz- 
zio, and is by the artist Johnstone, of the Eoyal Scotch 
Academy. 

I shall conclude this sketch of Queen Mary with a 
few reasons for the belief which is strong within me, 
that the beautiful and unfortunate Queen of Scots was 
never untrue to Lord Darnley in word or deed, and 
they are these : — 

In the first place, Darnley was young and good look- 
ing, and as Queen Mary herself said of him, " he was 
the properest and best proportioned long man that ever 
she had seen," while Riccio, her alleged paramour, is- 
described by some contemporary writers as being a man 
advanced in years, of unpleasant features, and some- 
what deformed in person, and is it at all likely that 
Queen Mary would have engaged in a low vulgar 
intrigue with a person like that, and so far inferior in 
rank and position to herself at that? 



512 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

Moreover, Queen Mary, had she been disposed, 
could have found a lover in the person of Chastelard, 
who came in her suite from France, who was a grand- 
nephew of the illustrious Chevalier Bayard himself, 
and who was said also to resemble him, and who was 
of the middle height, very handsome, of a spare figure, 
and was clever, having a talent both for music and 
poetry. 

Queen Mary often conversed with this handsome 
young man, because he was possessed of a fine address 
and genteel manners, and, best of all, could talk to 
her of France, the country of her adoption, and which 
she loved so well, and of which she had been for a 
time the youthful queen. 

This young man, in an evil hour, fancied from the 
Queen's condescension that she entertained a guilty 
passion for him, and concealed himself in the Queen's 
bed-chamber, but he was fortunately discovered by the 
Queen's attendants before Mary had retired. 

Upon being informed of his extraordinary conduct, 
the Queen at once ordered him from her presence and 
from the palace forever, but presuming upon her for- 
mer forbearance, Chastelard afterwards repeated the 
offense while the Queen was making a progress from 
Holyrood to Fife, which cost the infatuated young 
man his life. 

Now, who shall say that Queen Mary ignored and 
rejected the passion of this well born youth, to submit 
to the licentious embrace of a low born Italian 
menial ? 



HOLYROOD CHAPEL. 513 

I will never believe it, and shall always be of the 
opinion that Queen Mary has been most foully and 
unjustly aspersed, and that, at length after a weary 
imprisonment of more than eighteen years at the hands 
of Queen Elizabeth, she fell an innocent victim on the 
block to Jealous and wholly unfounded suspicions, by 
the cruel and unjustifiable mandate of that 

*' false woman, 



Her sister and her fae." 



Holyrood Chapel is all that remains of the old 
Abbey, and of the ancient structure nothing remains 
'but the walls, the roof having fallen in many years 
since, and never having been restored ; but much of the 
architecture of the remaining portion of the venerable 
and historic ruin, is said by competent critics to belong 
to the architecture of a period much later. 

For example, the arcade on the western wall of the 
abbey affords a beautiful illustration of the transition 
from the Roman to the Gothic arch ; and the grand 
western front is, in the main, a fine specimen of the 
early English style. The great East window is also 
very fine, but it is thought to be of comparatively 
modern erection, the transept and choir having ex- 
tended a good way beyond this point. 

This venerable chapel has been the scene of very 
marfy historical events. Here King Charles I. was 
crowned King of Scotland; James II. and James III. 

33 



514 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

were married here, and here, too, the ill-matched and 
alike ill-fated pair, Lord Darnley and Queen Mary, 
knelt before the sacred altar beneath the great east 
window, and plighted their troth for weal or woe ; and 
here, also, it was that the Papal Legate presented to 
King James IV., from Pope Julius II., the sword of 
state which has already been described and alluded to 
as among the royal regalia in the Castle of Edin- 
boro' . 

It would seem that some of these illustrious dead 
must have been good Freemasons and Sir Knights of 
the " Valiant and magnanimous Order of Knights Tem- 
plars," in whom you may be sure that "A Knight Tem- 
plar Abroad ' ' took more than a merely passing interest, 
for upon the tombs of some we saw incribed the perfect 
ashler, setting-maul, and square and compass, while 
upon others we noticed the rude-cut figures of reclin- 
ing knights, panoplied in full armor, " with crossed feet 
and upraised hands." Vet'bmn sapientisat. 

The last time the chapel was used for worship was 
in the reign of James II., who celebrated mass there, 
and which so excited the Protestant populace that they 
partially destroyed it at the Revolution of 1688, and 
the accession of the Prince of Orange-Nassau. 

Several of the kings of Scotland had been interred 
within the old church of the Holyrood Monastery, but 
their coffins were pillaged, and the remains were dese- 
crated by the mob in 1688; and for this reason it is 
said to be extremely doubtful whether the bones of 



EDINBORO' UNIVERSITY. 515 

David II., James VI., and Lord Heury Darnley, are 
yet in tiie royal vaults, though, of course, originally 
interred there, according to the usual custom. 

Riccio, the murdered secretary, was at first interred 
there by the rather indiscreet command of Queen 
Mary, but upon wiser counsels prevailing, his remains 
were afterwards removed to the part of the chapel 
nearest the palace. 

But little now remains to be said of the city of Edin- 
boro' which would be likely to interest our readers, 
so we shall hasten to conclude our rambling remarks 
which have already gone far beyond our expectations or 
intention when we first set out to chronicle the travels 
of "A Knight Templar Abroad ;" and we are fully 
aware that we have failed to keep our promise as to 
its being an " abstract and brief chronicle," but we 
here undertake to say, in the best of faith, that those 
of our kind and unhy per critical readers who have had 
the patience to follow us thus far, in spite of our dull- 
ness and many palpable shortcomings, shall soon reach 
the end of our " Pilgrimage." 

The University of Edinboro' is well worth a visit, 
but I shall not stop to describe it here, but will only 
say that the library contains more than 130,000 volumes 
and several hundred valuable MSS. The number of 
students of late years has averaged as many as 3,000, 
(about as half as many as Cambridge), and it is perhaps 
worthy of mention that the southeast corner of the 
college is believed the site of the old house of Kirk-o- 
Field, where Darnley was blown up while he was con- 



516 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

valescing from an attack of small-pox early on the 
morning of the 10th of February, 1557, by the " Gun- 
powder Plot" of Both well, of complicity y in which 
by the way, he solemnly declared before his death that 
the Queen was innocent. The force of the explosion 
was so terrible that the horribly mutilated bodies of 
Darnley and his page were blown into the adjoining gar- 
den, and of the house of Kirk-o-Field " ther remainit 
not ane stone upon ane other undestroyit." 

Now, a few remarks in regard to the New Town of 
Edinboro, and we shall take our departure for the 
beauties of the Trossachs, Loch Katrine, and Loch 
Lomond. 

We shall first speak of the Scott Monument, the 
chief ornament of Princes Street, and which is some- 
what similar in design to the Albert Memorial in South 
Kensington, London, (though less pretentious and ex- 
pensive, and not having the typical groups at the four 
corners of the large plateau on which it is situated 
these subsidiary groups of the Albert Memorial, in 
London, being probably fifty or sixty feet away from 
the monument which stands in the center, and in which 
these groups represent, the four grand divisions of the 
globe.) 

It was erected in 1844, at an expense of about $80,- 
000, from designs furnished by Geoige Meikle Kemp, 
who was a young self-taught artist, whose designs tri- 
umphed over many of the leading architects of the 
United Kingdom, but who, unfortunately, did not live 
to see completed this noble monument, which none the 



THE SCOTT MONUMENT. 517 

less commemorated his own genius, while at the same 
time doing honor to the incomparable talents of the 
Wizard of the North. 

The monument is in the form of an open Gothic 
cross or tower, 200 feet high, which with its groined 
arch forms a" canopy for the colossal statue of Sir 
Walter, with his favorite greyhound. Prince, at his feet, 
which was sculptured by Mr. John StuU (afterwards 
Sir John Stull,) who was knighted by the Queen at 
the inauguration of the Albert Memorial in Edinboro', 
in August, 1876, as a slight testimonial of her appre- 
ciation of the artist's work. Many of the niches in 
the monument are occupied by statues of the most 
familiar characters in Scott's novels and poems, and as 
I stood and looked with critical eye at the various 
beauties of the monument, and its many beautifully 
carved figures, my mind reverted quickly to many 
characters and incidents in his immortal works, which, 
for the nonce had entirely escaped my memory, and 
this splendid monument is an enduring reminder both 
of the great author and his chefs' d'oeuvre in the field 
of literature of which he will ever remain a *' bright 
and shining; light." 

Dr. Livingstone, the African explorer, has also a 
monument not far from Sir Walter Scott's, but it is too 
near the more imposing structure to attract much 
notice. 

The house where Sir Walter was born is unfortun- 
ately no longer to be seen, as together with a number 
of others, it was torn down in order to open up the 



518 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

present Chambers Street. However, the house in 
Castle Street (No. 39), where he resided for many 
years is still to be seen, and a witty Frenchman re- 
marked upon one occasion that " thirty-nine was 
the right number exactly for Sir Walter, as it was 
fitting that the Three Graces and the Nine Muses should 
take their station there." 

The Scott monument fronts on St. David Street, and 
the house on the right-hand corner fronting St. An- 
drew Square, is the one in which Hume, the historian, 
died, and it is believed that the rigid and orthodox 
Presbyterians of Edinboro' gave the street that name 
as a kind of biting irony on Hume's well known scep- 
tical sentiments, and it seems not a little strange that 
Hume and Gibbon, the historians of the world's two 
greatest empires, perhaps, should both have tried, in 
the terse words of Byron, to " sap a solemn creed with 
solemn sneer." 

Lord Byron's mother, by the way, resided in a 
house on the east side of the same square, and Lord 
Brougham was born in the house (No. 21) directly 
opposite Hume's. 

It is said when the historian's house was almost 
the only one in the newlj'^-opened street, that Dr. 
Webster, one of the ministers of Edinboro' , chalked 
upon the front of Hume's house, the words Saint 
David Street. 

When the historian was told of the liberty which 
had been taken with his premises and his name as 
well, he replied, " Weel, weel, Janet, never mind. 



THE ALBERT MEMORIAL. 519 

I'm not the first man of sense that has been made a 
saint of." Hume and Burns both are buried not far 
from the foot of the Calton Hill, In Princes Street 
there is also a fine equestrian statue of the Duke of 
Wellington, this, too, by Sir John Stull, Her Majesty's 
sculptor for Scotland. 

The only other monuments of interest in Edinboro', 
besides the Albert Memorial are the statues of William 
Pitt and George IV., in George Street, by Chantrey, 
where also stands Saint Andrew's Church, which is 
noted as the scene of the disruption of the Church of 
Scotland in 1843. 

The Albert Memorial, at the foot of George Street, 
is a very fine equestrian statue of Prince Albert, and 
occupies the center of Charlotte Square. The statue is 
of bronze, and more than thirty feet high, and has sub- 
sidiary groups of the same material at the four corners 
of the pedestal, and scenes from the life of this truly 
good and noble Prince (who was essentially great 
without any pretensions to greatness) in alto-relievo 
tablets on each side of the pedestal. Now, we shall 
allude briefly to the glories of the National Gallery, 
and then take the Caledonian Railway for Callender 
and the Trossachs. 

About the only remaining place of interest in the 
Scottish capital leftundescribed is the National Gallery, 
and with that we are compelled, though much against 
our will, to take our departure from this truly beauti- 
ful, and from an historic standpoint, intensely inter- 
esting city. 



520 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

The National Gallery is on Princes Street, directly 
beneath the shattered guns of the frowning old castle of 
Edinboro', and was founded in 1850, by the univers- 
ally beloved and lamented Prince Albert, than whom 
we readily concede that there have been greater states- 
men and warriors among England's rulers, but who, if 
not among the greatest of the princes of England ( and 
who, like the Prince of Orange with the Princess Mary 
was well worthy of sharing the throne with Queen Vic- 
toria, although unlike him, he did not), was certainly 
among the best and most virtuous of them all ; and who 
was more interested in all social and domestic reforms, 
and in the progress of literature, and the fine arts, 
than any of his predecessors belonging to that per- 
haps somewhat useless and certainly expensive royal 
family, and a portion of whose extraordinarily feli- 
citous and admirable address upon that occasion, is 
quoted here as well worthy of reproduction, and as 
well calculated to show the refining influences of the 
fine arts upon an appreciative and a cultivated people. 

His Eoyal Highness said in that address among other 
things, when he laid the corner stone of the proposed 
institution (which was completed in 1854, and is a fine 
example of the Ionic order of architecture): "The 
building, of which we have just begun the founda- 
tion, is a temple to be erected to the fine arts — 
the fine arts which have so important an influence 
upon the development of the mind and feeling of 
a people, and which are so generally taken as the 
type of the degree and character of that develop- 



ALBERT ON FINE ARTS. 521 

ment, that it is on the fragments of the works of art 
come down to-us from bygone generations, that we are 
wont to form our estimate of the state of their civili- 
zation^ manners, customs, and religion. Let us hope 
that the impulse given to the culture of the fine arts in 
this country, and the daily increasing attention bestowed 
on it by the people at large, will not only tend to 
refine and elevate the national taste to a higher and 
more correct standard, but will also lead to the pro- 
duction of works, which, if left behind us as memorials 
of our age, will give to after generations an adequate 
idea of our advanced state of civilization . It must be an 
additional source of gratification to one to find that part 
of the funds rendered available for the support of this 
undertaking should be the ancient grant, which, at the 
Union of the two kingdoms, was secured towards the 
encouragement of the fisheries and manufactures of 
Scotland, as it affords a most pleasing proof that these 
important branches of industry have arrived at that 
stage of manhood and prosperity that they no longer 
require the aid of a fostering government but can main- 
tain themselves independently, relying upon their own 
vigor and activity, and can now, in their turn, lend 
assistance and support to their younger and weaker 
sisters — the fine arts. Gentlemen, the history of this 
grant exhibits to us the picture of a more healthy 
national progress ; the ruder arts connected with the 
necessaries of life first gaining strength, then education 
and science supervening and directing further exer- 
tions, and lastly, the Arts, which only adorn life. 



522 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

becoming longed for by a prosperous and educated 
people." 

Let us hope that these eminently just and eloquent 
remarks of this truly virtuous German prince, who 
would have adorned the throne of England by his 
" victories of peace," with a lustre that her greatest 
warrior king could not surpass by his glorious achieve- 
ments on the sanguinary field of battle, may have 
their salutary effect upon this day and generation, and 
infuse into it, too, a love for the refining and softening 
influences of the Fine Arts, which the illustrious orator 
so truly says " only adorn life." 

The collection is very varied and valuable, and con- 
sists of about 550 pictures (many of them by the old 
masters, and, of course, extremely valuable) by the 
best Continental, British, and Scotch artists, and about 
forty pieces of statuary. 

The galleries entering from the last portico, are 
assigned to the Royal Scottish Academy's annual ex- 
hibition of the works of living artists^ but as they are 
to be seen only from February until May, and as my 
visit to Edinboro' was made in the month of August, 
1883, of course I did not see this collection. But the 
West Gallery is open all the year round, and this, of 
course, is the portion of the gallery best worth a visit, 
as it contains the permanent collection of the Academy, 
which includes the pictures presented by the Academi- 
cians on receiving their diplomas; and here, of course, 
are some of the works of the old masters, and this col- 
lection is large and valuable, including many notable 



NATIONAL GALLERY. 523 

productions, from the brushes of both domestic and 
Continental artists. 

I shall, however, mention only a few of the many 
pictures and portraits before which I lingered in rapt 
admiration, and which had I but possessed the purse 
of Fortunatas, I would have liked to import to Amer- 
ica, and form a nucleus for the Renaissance of 
American Art, so to speak. While I think of it I wish 
to speak of the portrait of the cruel Claverhouse, 
which represented him as overflowing with the milk of 
human kindness, and with long clustering ringlets 
hanging down on his shoulders, looking little enough 
like the brutal companion of the " Bloody Kirke," who, 
with their fierce dragoons, persecuted and hounded to 
the death the martyred Covenanters whom they relent- 
lessly butchered in cold blood by thousands. 

I took special interest, of course, in the portraits of 
Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott, and of Hume, the 
historian, in whose historic footsteps I had been so 
lately treading, and in the picture of Jeanie Deans and 
the robbers, which told the wondrous story of her 
arduous trip, mostly on foot, from Edinboro' up to Lon- 
don, a distance of 400 miles, beset with dangers and 
hardships of every kind, to beg the life of her unfor- 
tunate sister, Effie, at the hands of Queen Caroline. 
And never should the remarkable words be forgotten 
which Jeanie Deans addressed to Queen Caroline 
upon that momentous occasion, when the life of her 
young sister Effie, who, truth to tell, had been more 



524 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

sinned against than sinning, hung trembling in the 
balance : — 

*' When the hour of trouble comes to the mind, or 
to the body, and when the hour of death comes, that 
comes to high and low, oh, my leddy, then it is na 
what we hae dune for oursells, but what we hae dune 
for others, that we think on maist pleasantly." 

Still another interesting picture is that representing 
the great Reformer, John Knox, dispensing the sacra- 
ment, at Calder House, to his orthodox Scotch breth- 
ren. 

Another intensely thrilling picture which vividly 
recalled what it cost the earlier Christians to obtain 
freedom to worship God is called " The Covenanters' 
Communion; " and then the bloody butchery of Glen- 
coe, in 1692, and the battle of Waterloo, next attracted 
my attention. 

Next an interesting picture, by Drummond, details 
almost the last vicissitude in the checkered career of 
Mary Queen of Scots, prior to her injudicious appeal 
to the generosity of Queen Elizabeth, when she surren- 
dered herself to her kinswoman, which is called " The 
Return of Mary Queen of Scots to Edinboro', after 
her Surrender to the Confederate Lords at Carberry 
Hill, 1567." Then comes the " Porteous mob," by the 
same artist, and the ever-famous " Battle of Bannock- 
burn, "^and then the " Marriage in Cana," after Paul 
Veronese. 

Van Dyck, who was the pupil of Rubens, and who 



SOME NOTABLE PICTURES. 525 

died at the early age of forty-two, and who, in spite of 
his licentious life, it is said painted the almost incredi- 
ble number of 950 pictures, has three masterpieces 
side by side, one of them representing the martyrdom 
of Saint Sebastian. 

" Venus attired by the Graces," is another picture 
of the sensuous school, by Guido Reni; and then we 
come to a fine picture of the " Adoration of the Magi," 
by Titian, and of " Christ, and the Money Changers 
in the Temple," a large picture of the " Transfigura- 
tion," thirteen feet by nine, after Raphael, by Urqu- 
hart, and the " Dead Christ in the Arms of the 
Father," which is a very striking and realistic picture. 

There is also a very fine portrait of Charles I., by 
Van Dyck, *' Venus and Adonis," by Paul Veronese, 
and a very fine *' Ecce Homo," or '* Christ Crowned 
with Thorns," by Guido Reni; "Mars and Venus," 
by Paul Veronese ; '* The Last Supper," by Bonifacio; 
"Bacchus and Ariadne," and many other exquisite 
paintings, which we have not time or space to mention, 
and we will close the imperfect list by an allusion to 
the magnificent painting of the " Judgment of Paris," 
and the rival " Goddesses, Venus, Juno and Minerva," 
in all their sensuous beauty, to whom the gifted poet, 
Thomson, alludes in his beautiful poem, " Sum- 
mer: " — 

"Not Paris, on the piny top of Ida 
Panted stronger, 
When aside the rival Goddesses, 
The veil divine, cast unconflned, 
And gave him all their charms." 



526 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

and on account of which spretae injuria formae^ as 
Virgil says, mythology tells us that the haughty and 
indignant Juno sided with the Greeks in the Trojan 
war, which was the result of Venus' having previously 
hrihed the court (Paris) by the extraordinary induce- 
ment of giving him Helen, the wife of Menelaus, King 
of Sparta, who, we are told, was the most beautiful 
woman of her time. 

There are several very fine pieces of statuary judi- 
ciously interspersed here and there through the rooms, 
of which we will name only the most interesting : A 
lovely Psyche, marble busts of Her Majesty, Queen 
Victoria, Lord Brougham, and the Duke of Wellington, 
bust of a Scotch lassie, statue of Hebe, a model in 
bronze of the Parthenon, presented by " Grecian 
Williams ; " and last, but not least, by any means, three 
models in wax by the great Michael Angelo Buonaroti ; 
two members of the famous (or rather, perhaps, 
more strictly speaking, the infamous) family of the 
Medici ; and a perfectly exquisite model of the Ma- 
donna and the infant Jesus. 

The next morning we took the train for Loch Katrine, 
and sixteen miles west of Edinboro', on the Caledonian 
Railway, we reach Linlithgow, which is a place of great 
antiquity, and associated with many interesting events 
in the history of Scotland and her kings ; and here it 
was that Queen Mary was born to the royal purple, on 
December 8, 1542, just seven days before the death of 
her father. King James V., leaving her his only child, 
and heir to the throne of Scotland ; and at whose birth 



LINLITHGOW. 527 

he made this sinister prediction: "The crown came 
with a lass, and will go with a lass; many miseries 
await this poor kingdom. Henry (of England) will 
make it his own, either by force of arms or by mar- 
riage." 

A part of this sinister prediction came true, but he 
then little foresaw that the son of the unfortunate 
and unhappy Mary, would unite and rule over the two 
kingdoms with undisputed sway, and with the most 
beneficent results. 

As early as the twelfth century, King David I. had 
here a castle and a church, and the old Scottish knights 
of St. John of Jerusalem, had a priory of the Order 
near Linlithgow. The old palace is clearly visible 
from the railway, and with its row of windows near 
the roof, and solid walls below, shows at once that it 
dates back to the forays of feudal times. It stands on 
the same site as King David's castle, and covers an 
acre of ground. Although mainly in ruins, it is the 
finest palace of which Scotland could ever boast, and 
fully justifies what Scott says of it in his Marmion, — 

" Of all the palaces so fair, 
Built for the royal dwelling 
In Scotland, far beyond compare 
Linlithgow is excelling." 

Like almost all these palaces of feudal times, which 
were added-to piecemeal as it were in different reigns, 
the palace of Linlithgow shows, in the construction of 
its various portions, the different styles in architecture 
which prevailed at various periods, but the larger and 



528 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

more ornate portion of the building bears the mark of 
the prevailing style of the earlier half of the sixteenth 
century. King James III. added to it largely, including 
the Tyler's Tower; James IV. erected the east side of 
the palace, and James V., the southern part, and the 
handsome outer gate, for the reception of his bride, 
the Princess Magdalen of France, and the ancient !Par- 
liament Hall of Scotland was above this entrance, 
where James VI., who erected the north side of the 
palace, held a Parliament in 1585 in the Hall. In the 
center of the court or quadrangle, formerly stood an 
ornate fountain which was erected by James V. Like 
Windsor Castle for the English monarchs, and Fon- 
tainebleau and Versailles to the kings of France, so 
Linlithgow was for the Scottish monarchs a favorite 
residence and resort, being but sixteen miles from 
the Scotch capital. 

Here James III. lived during his minority; here 
Henry VI. took refuge when dethroned by Edward IV. ; 
and here King .Tames V. and Queen Mary were 
born. Near Linlithgow, the river Avon is spanned 
by a magnificent railway viaduct of some twenty- 
five arches nearly 100 feet high, which reminded me 
very much of one or two viaducts on the Baltimore 
and Ohio Eailway in Virginia. Not far from Linlith- 
gow is Falkirk, noted as the scene of two battles, one 
in 1298, between Sir William Wallace and King Ed- 
ward I. of England, and the other between the Pretender 
and the Eoyal forces, in the year 1746. About four 
miles east from Linlithgow, on the north side of the 



STIRLING. 529 

railway, may yet be seen the ruins of Niddry Castle, 
which is noted as being the first resting place of Queen 
Mary after her escape from Loch Leven Castle on the 
2d of May, 1568. 

Thirty-six miles north west from Edinboro brings 
us to Stirling with its ancient castle, and to which we 
must devote a few passing remarks at any rate, for it, 
too, has figured very considerably in Scottish history. 
Stirling stands on the right bank of the river Forth, 
and forms the junction of several railways, and is 
about thirty miles northeast of Glasgow. It commands 
a point of the Forth, which was long the main pas- 
sage from the Lowlands to the Highlands, and because 
of its great strategic importance, was probably an im- 
portant military station, even in ancient Caledonian 
times, during the Roman occupation, and during the 
later conflicts between the Scots and the Picts, and 
has figured more or less as the capital of Scotland, 
from the time of Malcolm Canmore till that of King 
James VI., and has participated so largely in the tur- 
moil of national strife, both martial and political, as 
late as the two rebellions of the eighteenth century, that 
if we estimate it by its importance and prominence in 
Scotch history, it can be regarded with an interest 
secondary to Edinboro' , with which, in fact, it has many 
features in common, being, like that city, partly ancient 
and partly modern, having modern villas, and wide 
streets intercepted with antique dwellings and narrow 
and ill conditioned thoroughfares. 

The castle stands on the precipitous brow of the 
34 



530 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

hill, and presents a highly romantic and picturesque 
spectacle. Like the castle of Edinboro', an esplanade 
separates the castle from the town, and two walls and 
fosses serve as outer defenses. Queen Anne's battery 
is within the second gateway, and commands a view 
almost unsurpassed for beauty and extent, extending 
all along the basin of the river Forth, and including 
Edinboro' Castle and Arthur's Seat in its scope, and all 
the surrounding mountain peaks of the Highland, many 
in number. 

To the right of the railway, near Stirling, on a rocky 
eminence nearly 400 feet high, which was the head- 
quarters of Sir William Wallace's army, prior to the 
battle of Stirling in 1297, is a fine monument to Wal- 
lace, erected in 1861-69, costing $80,000. 

It is said that from the castle no less than twelve of 
the battle-fields of Scotland can be seen, among them 
Bannockburn and Falkirk. The outer walls of the 
castle were built in Queen Anne's time, but the portion 
known as the palace, was built by James V., the Par- 
liament Hall by James HI., and the Chapel Eoyal by 
James VI. There is a little room in the castle known 
as the '* Douglas room," from the circumstance that 
King James II., who was born in Stirling, had given 
the "Black Douglas" safe conduct, but whom the 
king stabbed nevertheless, and threw his body out of 
the window, into the garden beneath, in a sudden fit of 
ungovernable passion. Queen Victoria, while in this 
vicinity, paid the castle a visit in 1842, and was so en- 
chanted with the view of the surrounding scenery, so 



MAGNIFICENT SCENERY. 531 

beautifully variegated by mountain and by valley, that 
the place from which she " viewed the prospect o'er," 
has been christened the " Victoria Lookout." 

Roderic Dhu has summed up in one glowing verse 
the many beauties of the scene from the battlements of 
Stirling Castle, which are at least 300 feet above the 
valley, in his reply to Snowdoun's Knight, the chival- 
rous and gallant James Fitz-James. 

Before giving this quotation, however, we will here 
apprise our readers that, as on the Rhine, we derived 
our poetical inspiration from Byron, so here, when we 
find ourselves in the magic realm of the enchanting 
Wizard of the North, we shall take the liberty of quot- 
ing occasionally from the beautiful lines of Scott, 
without as much as saying *' by your leave." 

In the " Lady of the Lake " says Roderick Dhu : 

" Saxon, from yonder mountain high, 
I marked thee send delighted eye 
Far to the South and East, where lay. 
Extended in succession gay, 
Deep waving fields and pastures green, 
With gentle slopes and groves between; 
"Whose fertile fields, that softened vale, 
Were once the birthright of the Gael." 

Rob Roy is said to have once been a prisoner here, 
and it is a tradition that Sir William Wallace once 
carried the breach by storm. 

I may say here, en passant^ that while I was engaged 
in *' doing" the sights of Edinboro', where I was sur- 
rounded on every hand with so much to distract my 
time and attention in the few days which remained to me 



532 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

before the steamer Anchoria was to sail from Glasgow 
in which I was booked for the passage back to my 
native land, I regretted extremely that I could not find 
time to visit Abbotsford, the home of Scott, Melrose 
Abbey, which is said to be very beautiful, so much so, 
that the Scott monument in Edinboro', is said to be "a 
recollection of the architectural beauties of Melrose 
Abbey;" Dryburg Abbey, where the great poet and 
author of the incomparable Waverley Novels is buried, 
and particularly to see Eosslyn or Eoslin Chapel, which 
is seven miles from Edinboro', on account of its found- 
er's connection with the Order of Freemasons, that 
noble body of men, who, in spite of the " Anti-Masonic 
Party," have steadily increased in numbers and in 
prestige, until they now number in the United States 
alone 1,000,000 stanch and loyal adherents. 

In spite of the anathema maranatha of bigoted Popes 
and narrow-minded laymen, the Order which is coeval 
almost with the universe itself, and certainly with the 
founding of King Solomon's Temple, is everyday taking 
a higher rank among thinking and sober-minded people ; 
chiefly because, as the Prince of Wales, the present 
Grand Master of England, lately wrote to the French 
Grand Master, " English Masons " (and we take the 
liberty here of saying Masons of all countries as well), 
" always held the belief that God is the first and great 
landmark of genuine Freemasons. Without such be- 
lief, nobody can rightly claim to inherit the traditions 
of true Freemasonry." 

These remarks, though apparently a digression, were 



ROSLYN CHAPEL. 533 

suggested by the fact that Rosslyn Chapel was 
founded by William III., Earl of Orkney, in 1446, 
who had conferred on him by King James II., the office 
of Grand Master of the Scottish Freemasons, which 
continued hereditary in the family of his descendants, 
until 1736, when it was resigned into the hands of the 
Scottish lodges. The whole building is a remarkable 
Gothic structure, but the pillars are especially pointed 
out to the visitor as its chief wonder, and particularly 
so to the Masonic visitor, as many of them yet bear the 
Mark Master Mason's " mark." But the marvel of the 
whole is the Apprentice's Pillar and thereby hangs a 
tale. The usual version of the encounter between the 
Master Mason and Entered Apprentice which every 
Master Mason is familiar with, but the usual procedure 
was reversed in this case, as the Master Mason had 
originally left the pillar unfinished while he went to 
Eome to study how to perfect it, and while he was 
gone, one of his Entered Apprentices had the temerity 
to finish it according to his own designs, whereat the 
Master, upon his return was so indignant that he 
killed him on the spot by a blow on the head with a 
setting-maul. This pillar is a clustered column, sur- 
rounded by an exquisitely wrought wreath of flowers 
running from base to capital, the very poetry of carv- 
ing. Above the pillar is the following inscription in 
Old English letters : " Forte est Vinum, fortior estrex^ 
forliores sunt mulieres; super omnia vincit Veritas.^' 
Which being interpreted meaneth — " Wine is strong, 



534 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

the king is stronger, women are yet stronger; but 
above all things, Truth is the victor." 

When, not long since, unawares I came upon this 
description of this interesting old chapel, which is 
directly connected with the Craft, it occurred to me 
that the old knights of Eosslyn, who, it is said, as late 
as the times of James VI., were buried uncoffined, 
but in complete armor, yet as Byron says, perhaps 
not altogether " unknelled and unknown," although 
" uncoflSned," most surely have been Knights Tem- 
plars, and Knights of the Eed Cross as well, else how 
happens it that the motto on the Apprentice's Pillar 
of Rossyln should be so eminently suggestive of a 
certain portion of the ceremonies of the Red Cross de- 
gree ; or is it merely one of those curious coincidences 
which sometimes occur, for which no satisfactory ex- 
planation can be given ? 

fc At the little low lying town of Callander, sixteen 
miles northwest of Stirling, we leave our comfortable 
railway carriage, and climb into a large, roomy open 
sort of wagonette, which holds twenty or twenty- 

%five passengers, and, having obtained a good seat, with 
the driver, and seated by our side a plump London 
girl, who, however, much to our regret, was flanked 

^ on the other side by her big brother, we took an ex- 
hilarating drive of twenty miles or more through the 
far-famed scenery of the Tossachs, which lie between 
Callander and Lady Ellen's Isle; but after the grand 
and sublime mountain peaks of Switzerland, which al- 



LOCH ACHEAY. 535 

most seem to kiss the heavens with their tops glisten- 
ing with eternal snow, the Tossachs rather pall upon 
one, and I shall not detain you long with an account 
of this portion of our pilgrimage, but shall only put 
down a few items of interest here and there. 

Not far from Callander, our expert and talkative 
" whip " called our attention to Ooilantogle Ford, 
which was the scene of the combat between Fitz- 
James and Roderick Rhu, and near here Ben-Ledi 
towers upward to the height of 2,500 feet, its name 
signifying " Hill of God," from having been anciently 
a place of heathen worship, then crossing the Brig of 
Turk, which figures in Fitz- James' stag hunt, then our 
Jehu drew up for a few minutes in front of the Tos- 
sachs' Hotel, a handsome structure, with a fine tower at^ 
each wing, where we obtained a nice luncheon, Ben An 
and Ben Venue look proudly down upon the scene, 
and Loch Achray lies spread out before the hotel, a 
beautiful expanse of water, all glistening in the sunshine. 

Not far from the hotel, we enter the formidable (?) 

pass of the Tossachs, and are soon in the . enchanted 

region of the ' ' Lady o f the Lake . ' ' Scott , speaking of 

a hunter pursuing a stag in this wild sequestered glade, 

says : — 

" Then dashing down a darksome glen 
Soon lost to hound and hunter's ken, 
In the deep Tossachs wildest nook 
His solitary refuge took." 

Now we reach the pier, and embark upon the di- 
minutive steamer Rob Roy, which our party of three or (.* 



(i> 



536 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

four coaches-full crowded rather uncomfortably, and 
sailing past Lady Ellen's Isle, soon found ourselves at 
the pier at Stronachlachar, where we debarked, and 
again took our places in a second wagonette to cross 
to Inversnaid on Loch Lomond. 

On the way to Loch Lomond we have pointed out 
to us a little hut, where it is said that Helen McGregor, 
the wife of Rob Roy, was born, and then descending 
to Inversnaid through a dull, unromantic, and sterile 
looking country, which almost made one wonder why 
the Scotch were so much attached to their bleak and 
uninteresting heather, their native heath though it be, 
we soon reach Inversnaid, where we rested a few 
minutes while waiting for the steamer on Loch Lo- 
mond, which was a boat considerably larger and more 
comfortable than the stufl'y miniature little Rob Roy 
on Loch Katrine, which was a very small propeller. 
However, while we are waiting for the boat at Inver- 
snaid, I will give you Sir Walter Scott's reasons for the 
" Cannie Scot's " intense fondness for Bonnie Scot- 
land, as he had rather better facilities for knoAving his 
own countrymen than the average "pilgrim," no mat- 
ter how much time he might spend in the country, or 
how great might be his powers of observation. 

He says in the " Heart of Midlothian " that, " perhaps 
one ought actually to be a Scotsman to conceive how 
ardently, under all distinctions of rank and situation, 
they feel their mutual connection with each other as 
natives of the same country. 

"There are, I believe, more associations common to 



LOCH LOMOND. 537 

the inhabitants of a rude and wild, than of a well culti- 
vated and fertile country ; their ancestors have more 
seldom changed their place of residence ; their mutual 
recollection of remarkable objects is more accurate ; 
the high and the low are more interested in each other's 
welfare; the feelings of kindred are more widely 
extended, and, in a word, the bonds of patriotic affec- 
tion, always honorable, even when a little too exclu- 
sively strained, have more influence on one's feelings 
and actions." 

Inversnaid, by the way is the scene of Words- 
Worth's poem the "Highland Girl," and has a 
very neat hotel and pier, and hard by the hotel is a 
cascade which falls by abrupt descents of thirty to 
forty feet at a leap, a distance of several hundred feet. 
Loch Lomond is three or four times as long as Loch 
Katrine, and is studded with picturesque islands at the 
lower end of the lake, some of them quite large, prob- 
ably thirty or forty in number, so that occasionally the 
steamer would almost touch the shore, or brush by a 
rock so closely that you could almost have leaped 
ashore, if you had wished to, and is surrounded on 
every hand by mountain peaks varying from 978 feet, 
the height of Killeter Hill, to grand old Ben Lomond, 
pointing heavenward more than 3,000 feet. 

Rob Roy's Cave, where he used to hold his councils 
with his clan, is on the east side of Loch Lomond, 
and near Tarbet, on the western shore, was a favorite 
residence of Jeffreys of the " Bloody Assizes." 

Buchanan House, on the east side of the lake is 



538 A KNIGHT TEMPLAK ABROAD. 

clearly visible from the steamer's deck, which has 
exteDsive grounds, as it is the seat of the Duke of 
Montrose who owns the eastern shore of the Loch 
almost for its entire length, and for some miles in the 
interior, and who is a lineal descendant of Montrose, 
of whose cruel death and Christian resignation we 
have spoken above. The most interesting associa- 
tions, however, which are connected with Loch 
Lomond, are those associated with the home, 
or *' castle," as the Scotch call it, of the fa- 
mous author, Tobias Smollett, and who fondly 
cherish his name and fame as a native of Dumbarton 
County, because for many years prior to his birth, his 
family were people of prominence and distinction in 
the County of Dumbarton, and he was reared here. 
His antecedents were quite historic ; as his grandfather. 
Sir James Smollett, of Bonhill, who was a successful 
barrister, represented the borough of Dumbarton in 
the Scotch Parliament, and was one of the commis- 
sioners appointed to draw up the Act of Union between 
England and Scotland. He married Jane, the daughter 
of Sir Aulay Macaulay of Ardincaple who was prob- 
ably a connection of the celebrated Lord Macaulay, 
the great Whig historian. 

The author's father was Archibald Smollett, who 
was educated at the University of Ley den, and who 
followed no profession. He married without consult- 
ing his father, but his wife was " an excellent woman, of 
distinguished understanding, taste, and elegance," so 
that it is not strange that the son should have had 



TOBIAS SMOLLETT. 539 

more or less talent. It is said that it is always the 
mother who forms the character of the child for good 
or evil, for greatness, or the contrary, and it was cer- 
tainly the case with young Smollett, as his father died 
while he was yet a child ; but his superior mother 
did not allow him to lack educational facilities. 
A small estate, which is still in the hands of her 
descendants, and of which we had a fine view from the 
steamer's deck at the lower end of Loch Lomond near 
the mouth of the Leven,was allotted to the young 
couple as a residence and means of support. Smollett 
died and was buried at Leghorn, but a monument to 
his memory has been erected on the right bank of the 
Leven for which Dr. Johnson, more than a century 
ago, furnished the inscription. 

Its beautiful situation is described by their distin- 
guished son, the author, and as it affords a beautiful 
pen picture of the many varied attractions of Loch 
Lomond, I transcribe it here. 

Smollett says in his famous <' Expedition of Hum- 
phrey Clinker:" "I have seen the Lago di Gardi, 
Albano de Yico, Balsena, and Geneva, and I prefer 
Loch Lomond to them all, a preference which is cer- 
tainly owing to the verdant islands which seem to float 
on its surface, affording the most enchanting objects 
of repose to the excursive view. Nor are the banks 
destitute of beauties which partake of the sublime. 
On this side they display a sweet variety of woodland, 
corn fields, and pasture, with several agreeable villas, 
emerging, as it were, out of the lake, till at some dis- 



540 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

tance, the prospect terminates in huge mountains cov- 
ered with heath, which, being in the bloom, affords a 
very rich covering of purple. Everything here is 
romantic beyond imagination. The country is justly 
styled the Arcadia of Scotland. I do not doubt but it 
may vie with Arcadia in everything but climate ; I am 
sure it excels in verdure, wood, and water." 

At Balloch Pier, we leave the steamer Prince Con- 
sort, and take the train for Glasgow, after a most 
enjoyable day spent in sightseeing among the lovely 
scenery of Loch Katrine and Loch Lomond, and on 
the right hand of the railway, Dumbarton Castle looms 
proudly skyward at an elevation of more than 500 
feet, and which derives its fame from the fact that Sir 
William Wallace was once a prisoner here ; and if you 
will take the trouble to climb up the castle hill, you 
can see the gigantic »word of Sir William Wallace, 
from which it would seem that he must have been a 
very Hercules in strength and stature, as no common 
man can either wield or wear his trusty broad sword, 
and from its associations the higher peak of the two 
is known as Wallace Seat 

At Glasgow, I took up my quarters at the Cockburn 
Hotel, because I had heard that it was known as the 
American hotel of Glasgow, and certainly from the pro- 
fusion of American flags which were stuck up all over 
the dining-room, and which they glued all over the 
iK baggage of every American who stopped even for one 
meal at the house, I very soon came to the conclusion 
that the proprietor was rather over-doing the " toady " 



GLASGOW. 541 

business, but a very nice American girl from Louisi- 
ana, who was the polite and accommodating clerk, ^ 
more than made amends for all that, and I found the 
few days I spent there passed pleasantly enough. 

The sights of Glasgow are not many in number, 
and as I am extremely anxious to bring this rambling 
" Pilgrimage " to a close, lest my readers, who have 
thus far borne with me so much more kindly than I 
deserve, shall have already voted it, *' stale, flat, and 
unprofitable," I shall not take up many more pages 
before I write Finis, certainly to my own infinite satis- 
faction, and I fear me much, none the less to my pa- 
tient and lono;-sufferinoc friends. 

The cathedral, is of course, worth a visit, but I 
shall not attempt to describe it, as you have had 
cathedrals ad libitum if notac? nauseam, but its stained 
glass windows are truly marvelous and more than 
eighty in number, more than half of them thirty feet 
high, and each of them gives a Bible story complete. 

The Necropolis is beautifully situated and gives you 
a fine view of this great commercial metropolis of 
more than half a million souls, and contains many fine 
monuments, but there is only one of world-wide re- 
nown, and that is John Knox's. 

There is a long inscription upon the shaft, almost as 
long as that of Erasmus of Rotterdam at Basle, but 
there is one sentence which seems especially worthy of 
being noted : — 

" When laid in tne ground, the regent said, ' There 
lieth he who never feared the face of man, who was 



542 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

often threatened with dag and dagger, yet hath ended 
his days in peace and honor.' " 

George Square, in Glasgow has some eight or ten 
monuments, and is a great resort and promenade for 
the citizens. 

Sir Walter Scott is remembered by a monument 
eighty feet high. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert 
each have an equestrian bronze statue, and Sir Robert 
Peel and James Watt are also commemorated by 
bronze statues, the former in a standing posture as 
becomes the statesman, and the latter in a sitting pos- 
ture, as equally becomes the student. 

The warriors. Sir John Moore and Lord Clyde, Burns 
and Campbell, the poets, and Dr. Livingstone, the ex- 
plorer of Africa, also are commemorated here. So 
that George Square probably has a larger collection 
of monuments to distinguished persons than any other 
public square in the world, perhaps. 

In the northwestern quarter of the city stands the 
new college on the eminence of Gilmore Hill, which 
overlooks a curve in the river Kilvin and gives a 
very commanding view of the city below, and in the dis- 
tance a great part of Renfrewshire, which was founded 
in 1866, and opened for the reception of students, 
and is six hundred feet long and three hundred wide, 
and includes two quadrangles, and which, when finally 
completed, will cost about $2,500,000. 

I am thus particular to mention this college because 
it contains what I regard as one of the greatest curi- 
osities in the world, which is nothing more nor less than 



GLASGOW UNIVERSITY. 543 

the identical old atmospheric engine of Newcomen, 
from which James Watt got the idea which resulted in 
the steam engine, and which entitles him to rank 
along side with Gutenberg, the inventor of printing, as 
the two master-minds whose wonderful inventions of 
the steam engine and the printing press have revolu- 
tionized the world, and, I think it safe to say, have 
effected more for the cause God and humanity than, 
perhaps, all the thousand and one devices which the 
ingenuity of man has devised for the amelioration of 
the condition of the human race. 

It has been disputed that Gutenberg was the inven- 
tor of printing, but additional proof of the fact, if any 
were needed, which should forever set at rest the vexed 
question, is found in the fact that in the university 
library at Eouen there has been recently found a letter 
which bears date of 1470, and tells about the intro- 
duction of printing into Paris that year, by three men 
who distinctly professed to be apprentices to Johannes 
Gutenberg. The house in Strasbourg, in which Guten- 
berg did his first work, still stands on the corner of the 
Cathedral Platz, it is claimed by some, although others 
assert that it was torn down about a century ago. 
Watt was a Professor in the old Glasgow University, 
and was trying to repair the Newcomen engine, which, 
at the time, was a portion of the apparatus of the 
Natural Philosophy Class, when he struck upon the idea 
of a separate condenser, among other things, which 
resulted in the invention of the steam engine which has 
made his name immortal. In the same apartment with 



544 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

the old Newcomen engine is a statue of James Watt 
presented by his son to the University, as he says, " in 
gratitude for the encouragement afforded by its pro- 
fessors to the scientific pursuits of his father's early 
life." In the same room are to be seen several 
things of interest to the religious world, notably the 
first Bible printed at Rome, 1471, and a copy of the 
first edition of the English Bible translated by Miles 
Corndale and printed at Zurich, 1535, a copy of Virgil, 
1470, also a " Byble " of 1575, one of 1549, one of 
1639, and one of 1611, a Genevan Bible, 1615, and a 
French Bible, {La Bible), 1560. 

Before leaving Glasgow, I must not omit to say that 
I had the pleasure of seeing the " Jersey Lily," who 
was playing a week's engagement at the Princess 
Theater in Sauchihall Street, where she played Eosa- 
lind in "As You Like It," and, of course, as it was de 
rigueur to go and see her, I went, and I found her, in 
my judgment, a very handsome woman , though her chin 
is altogether too long to call her beautiful, and in the 
part of Eosalind her exquisitely molded limbs and per- 
fect figure in the garb of a page showed to the greatest 
advantage ; but although — 

"She is a daughter of the gods, 
Divinely tall, and most divinely fair," 

still, in my humble judgment, although the house 
was crowded, and she received several encores, yet she 
is very far from being a great actress, nor does she 
afford the prospect of ever being more even than 
mediocre. 



"THE JERSEY LILY." 545 

However, having posed as a *' Society Beauty," and 
having been " brought out " by His Royal Highness, 
the Prince of Wales, both combined have given her a 
" big send-off," and she has made a quarter of a million 
dollars, where more painstaking and more deserving 
actresses have failed to make a "hit." 

But it takes a woman to criticise another woman, 
and as Olive Logan has seen her lately and praised 
her — dresses — extravagantly, I will quote her descrip- 
tion of Mrs. Langtry's charms, not as an actress, but 
as an exquisite model for Worth's dresses to be shown 
off to the best advantage. We regret that we can not 
say more, and that we must " damn her with faint 
praise," but such is the case, unhappily. 

Olive speaks thus of Mrs. Langtry in a recent let- 
ter : — 

"And when the eyes of all the people were turned 
on Mrs. Langtry, what did they see there? Why, 
they saw a lovely bit of clay, a very noble-looking 
Anglo-Saxon woman. They saw a fair, square brow, 
such as Phidias might have loved to model; warm 
chestnut locks, to which no sculptor's cold implements 
could do the simplest justice; a wide, frank mouth, 
with an engaging smile, and teeth that mean defiance 
to those twin alliterative demons of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, dyspepsia and the dentist.'* 

" Yes, she is beautiful, — but having said so much 
in praise of Mrs. Langtry, I regret I can not extend 
the recital by any very warm commendation of her 
acting. She tried her best to be more than a beauti- 

35 



546 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

ful womaD, but she did not succeed in "talking her 
head off" — Wilkes' method of making his listeners 
forget his ugliness." 

" She wrung her hands, and wiped her eyes, and 
prostrated her shapely form on convenient sofas, but 
the fingers of her passion touched no chord on the harp 
of a thousand strings, and, like Peri, disconsolate at 
the gate of Paradise, she found herself powerless to 
obtain that priceless tribute of human sympathy — a 
tear." 

The next day the Anchoria's passengers took the 
train for Greenock, twenty-two miles from Glasgow 
down the Clyde, as she had dropped down on account 
of the tide in the Clyde not suiting her hour to sail, 
which was 5 p. m., and we were soon on board on our 
way back to our native heath. 

Greenock, by the way, is the place where lie buried 
the father and grandfather of James Watt, and James 
Watt himself was born here, and here, also, lies Eobert 
Burns' *' Highland Mary." 

The next morning when we awoke we found our- 
selves only one hundred and fifty miles on our journey, 
as we were anchored in Lough Foyle, off Moville in 
the county of Donegal, where Glasgow steamers 
bound for America always wait for the passengers 
from Londonderry, or *' Derry," as they call it in 
Ireland. 

I would have been very glad to go to Londonderry, 
which has stood many sieges during Ireland's troub- 
lous times, but was never taken, and hence proudly 



LONDONDEERY. 547 

bears to this day the undisputed title of the " Maiden 
City." 

The most terrible siege which it ever sustained, 
and which Macaulay says was the most memorable in 
the annals of the British Isles, lasted one hundred and 
five days before deliverance came and raised the siege 
on the last day of July, 1689. The garrison had been 
reduced from 7,000 to 4,000 men, and it was estimated 
that King James, who had returned from France, and 
was operating against King William III., in Ireland, 
lost 8,000 men during the three and a half months of 
the awful siege. 

The defense was mainly conducted by a preacher by 
the name of Walker, whom William afterwards made 
a Bishop in recognition of his gallant services, but being 
brave to rashness, he exposed himself so needlessly at 
the glorious victory of the Boyne, July 12, 1690, the 
next year, that he was unfortunately killed by a cannon 
ball. 

When William heard of Walker's death, he felt that 
the Bishop had been entirely out of place to be among 
the combatants, and accordingly with the indifference 
born of his phlegmatic Teutonic temperament, he 
paid very little attention to the Bishop's sad mishap, 
but when an attendant said to him : — 

" Sir, the Bishop of Derry has been killed by a shot 
at the ford." 

** What took him there? " growled the king. 

While the ship was lying at anchor in Lough Foyle, 
several of us went ashore, tried a little " poteen," 



548 A KNIGHT TEMPLAR ABROAD. 

which we found to be of such strength that it would 
not probably have taken many potations to floor 
one, so we prudently took a ride in an Irish jaunting- 
car, with a " Jarvey " for a driver, for a couple of 
miles, out to an old fort, which was said to date back 
to the days of the O's and the Mac's, this fortress being 
said to have been built by one Irish king, Fergus 
O'Donnell, away back yonder in the dim vista of the 
past. 

While we were on our way, four of us sitting in the 
jaunting-car, back to back, and enjoying the beautiful 
and romantic scenery of the Emerald Isle, where the 
grass really seems more verdant than any grass I had 
ever seen, and of which country, Froude, the historian, 
says, that " it is certainly the most beautiful country 
in the world," we met two policemen, with guns on 
their shoulders, coming in to Moville, so that we came 
to the conclusion that probably the average Irish 
policeman prefers to have company when on the scent 
of the last alleged " horrible agrarian outrage." 

The jaunting car is said to have been invented in 
the Waterloo year, by an Italian, by the name of Bian- 
coni, and is said to be extremely well adapted to the 
hilly roads of Ireland, though one great objection to ' 
them is that they are all open to the weather, and can 
not carry either many persons or very much luggage 
at a time. After returning from our ride on Irish 
soil, we went aboard of the Anchoria, just before she 
weighed her anchor. Soon her propeller began to 
revolve, and we were once more leaving behind us 



HOMEWARD BOUND. 549 

(most of US, no doubt like myself with little regret) 
a foreign shore. 

Little more remains now to be said, except that, 
after a very stormy and unpleasant voyage of twelve 
days, during which the greater portion of the passen- 
gers had been confined to their state-rooms, with the 
same old mdl du mer^ which they had, no doubt, like 
myself, also encountered upon first making the inti- 
mate acquaintance of old ocean, " A Knight Templar 
Abroad " was allowed once more, thanks to an all-wise 
Providence, to see the familiar shores of America, on a 
bright September morning, and then it was, for the 
first time, I think, in my life that I fully realized the 
full significance of Scott's beautiful lines : — 

" Breathes there the man with soul so dead, 
Who never to himself hath said, 
This is my own, my native land ! 
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, 
As home his footsteps he hath turned, 
From wandering on a foreign strand? 
If such there breathe, go, mark him well; 
For him no minstrel raptures swell! 
High though his titles, proud his name 
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; 
Despite those titles, power, and pelf. 
The wretch concentred all in self. 
Living, shall forfeit fair renown, 
And doubly dying, shall go down 
To the vile dust from whence he sprung, 
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung." 



FINIS. 



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